College Roundup: Gilligan Still Confident In Cardinals
In the final regular season game between Lamar coach Jim Gilligan and Rice coach Wayne Graham, two of the elder statesmen of the sport, No. 14 Rice defeated Lamar, 7-2, on Wednesday night.
| HOW THE TOP 25 FARED |
| (1) Florida: off |
| (2) Texas A&M: cancelled vs. Incarnate Word |
| (3) Mississippi State: off |
| (4) Miami: postponed vs. (19) Florida Atlantic |
| (5) Florida State: postponed vs. Stetson |
| (6) South Carolina: won, 4-1, vs. South Carolina-Upstate |
| (7) Mississippi: won, 12-1, vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff |
| (8) Texas Tech: off |
| (9) Louisville: off |
| (10) Vanderbilt: off |
| (11) North Carolina State: off |
| (12) Texas Christian: off |
| (13) Louisiana State: off |
| (14) Rice: won, 7-2, vs. Lamar |
| (15) UC Santa Barbara: off |
| (16) Virginia: off |
| (17) Oregon State: off |
| (18) Oklahoma State: off |
| (19) Florida Atlantic: postponed at (4) Miami |
| (20) Tulane: off |
| (21) Southern Mississippi: off |
| (22) Minnesota: won, 12-7, vs. Kansas |
| (23) Washington: off |
| (24) Michigan State: off |
| (25) Creighton: off |
Gilligan, 69, is retiring at the end of the season, but has the Cardinals (31-12) in contention in the Southland Conference and for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Wednesday, however, they were unable to get much going against the Owls’ pitching staff.
Freshman Zach Esquivel (5.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 6 K) gave Rice a solid performance in his first career start, and relievers Glenn Otto and Dane Myers kept Lamar from mounting a comeback.
A victory Wednesday would have been a boost to Lamar’s NCAA Tournament resume and given it some momentum going into its weekend series against Southland leader Southeastern Louisiana. But Gilligan said he thinks facing the Rice (28-14) pitching staff will have his team ready for the showdown this weekend.
“This game was an excellent practice run for Southeastern this weekend,” Gilligan said. “They’ll come in with some good arms and we’ll have to adjust. We learned some things about ourselves tonight.”
Pittsburgh, another team on the NCAA Tournament bubble, also took a tough loss Wednesday. Maryland-Eastern Shore rallied for seven runs in the eighth inning to defeat Pitt, 9-6, and split a two-game midweek series.
Pitt (22-18) has now lost four of its last five games—all at home—after getting swept by Virginia over the weekend.
It was a historic victory for UMES (15-30). The Hawks had never before beaten an Atlantic Coast Conference team and have now won a program-record nine nonconference games this season.
Second baseman Mike Escanilla (4-for-5, 3 RBIs) led the UMES offense. The senior is hitting .325/.402/.422 this season and now has 215 career hits, leaving him 10 shy of the program record held by Tre-Von Johnson.
After a tough weekend series loss to rival Michigan State, Michigan bounced back this week with a pair of wins against Eastern Michigan. The Wolverines completed the home-and-home sweep of the Eagles on Wednesday with a 12-0 win in Ypsilanti.
All 11 Wolverines to record a plate appearance collected at least one hit. In all, Michigan pounded out 17 hits, including six doubles, led by right fielder Carmen Benedetti (3-for-3, 2 2B, 3 RBIs). Michigan (31-12) will now look to ride its newfound momentum into this weekend’s series against Rutgers.
Comments are closed.