Owls’ title streak reaches 18
A blue banner at Reckling Park is a constant reminder of the Owls’ baseball success.
“Every year you come in and look at it … you don’t want to be that team (that ends the streak),” junior righthander John Simms said. “We’re trying to keep that legacy going.”
Simms threw seven shutout innings Saturday as Rice completed a threegame sweep of Marshall with a 6-0 victory to claim a share of an 18th consecutive conference championship.
Rice and Southern Miss ended the regular season in a tie, both at 15-9, in C-USA. The Owls own the season series tiebreaker and will be the top seed in the eight-team, pool-play format tournament beginning Wednes- day at Reckling Park.
The Owls have won or shared the conference regular-season or tournament title since 1996, the final year of the Southwest Conference.
“This was the hardest one of all,” Rice coach Wayne Graham said. “It seems like everybody can beat you nowadays.”
A week ago, the streak appeared in jeopardy after the Owls barely avoided a home sweep against Memphis.
Two games back in the standings, the Owls got some help when Houston beat Southern Mississippi twice this weekend, put- ting the Owls in position to claim a share of the championship on the final day of the regular season for the third consecutive year.
“It looked a little sketchy,” said second baseman Christian Stringer, who went 4-for-5 with two RBIs Saturday. “We had some bad weekends, some good weekends. But we hung with it and showed a lot of heart.”
Simms held Marshall to three hits, and reliever Zech Lemond threw two scoreless innings. After allowing two runs in the first inning Friday, Rice pitchers tossed 26 consecutive scoreless innings. Saturday’s shutout was the Owls’ school-record 11th of the season.
At the plate, Rice hit .319 and outscored the Thundering Herd 23-2. joseph.duarte@chron.com twitter.com/joseph_duarte