Rice wins to keep C-USA hopes alive
BILOXI, Miss. — Rice staved off elimination yet again with a 6-3 victory over Marshall on Friday in the Conference USA baseball tournament.
The Owls (26-32) advance to play Southern Mississippi (36-19) at 9 a.m. Saturday and will need to beat the Golden Eagles twice to advance to Sunday’s championship game. Florida Atlantic and UTSA play at 12:30 p.m., and UTSA also needs to win twice to reach the title game.
Senior Kendal Jefferies came up big for Rice, pitching 42⁄3 innings of scoreless relief. Jefferies struck out five and walked two in relief of starter Kei Bordwine, who struck out four and walked four while giving up a run in the first and two in the fifth.
Cade Edwards had two RBIs for the Owls, and Bradley Gneiting, Andrew Dunlap and Justin Collins also drove in runs. Trei Cruz went 2-for-4 and scored two runs.
Rice batters drew 13 walks, but the Owls left 15 runners on base.
BIG 12
Gabe Holt’s two-run homer in the seventh inning helped Texas Tech defeat Kansas 7-5 in a Big 12 tournament elimination game at Oklahoma City.
The top-seeded Red Raiders (38-16) will need to beat No. 4 seed West Virginia twice Saturday to reach the championship game Sunday. The Mountaineers defeated Tech 5-1 on Thursday.
The Jayhawks (32-26), who rallied to beat Kansas State in 11 innings Thursday to stay alive, put up a fight against the Red Raiders, with Jaxx Groshans driving in three runs as fifth-seeded Kansas jumped out to a 4-0 lead before Tech rallied in the sixth inning.
Josh Jung hit a solo homer, and then Kurt Wilson hit a two-run blast to put the Red Raiders ahead 5-4.
Brett Vosik hit a solo shot in the seventh for Kansas to tie the score at 5, but Holt’s blast put Tech ahead for good. Holt finished with three hits and three RBIs.
The day’s other elimination game between Baylor and TCU was suspended in the top of the eighth inning because of unplayable field conditions after rain moved through the area.
The game, which the Horned Frogs was leading 5-2, will be resumed at 9 a.m. Saturday.
SOUTHLAND
McNeese State defeated Incarnate Word 5-3 at Constellation Field in Sugar Land to advance to Saturday’s Southland tournament title game.
At 6 p.m., the Cowboys will play the winner of Saturday’s 1 p.m. elimination game between Central Arkansas and Southeastern Louisiana, which will be a rematch of a Friday winner’s-bracket game won by the Lions 9-2.