With their backs against the wall, Rice had to win the 2017 CUSA Baseball Tournament in order to make the NCAA Tournament for the 23rd straight year.
They cruised through the first three games of the tournament before facing the number one seeded Southern Miss.
Things looked grim early as Southern Miss took an early 2-0 lead with single runs in the third and fourth innings, but Rice answered right back with two of its own in the bottom of the fourth.
After a brief rain delay, Southern Miss went back on top with two runs in the top of the fifth.
However, the Owls still had some fight left as they tied it back up in the bottom of the seventh.
It remained that way until the bottom of the ninth when Ryan Chandler drove in the winning run for a walk-off win, sending Rice to the NCAA Tournament for the 23rd straight year.
Chandler finished the game going 3-5 with a run scored and 2 RBI. Everyone in the starting lineup for Rice had at least one hit as they out-hit Southern Miss 12-5 in the game.
Rice got some great pitching performances from two of its horses in Matt Canterino and Glenn Otto.
Canterino pitched the first four innings allowing 4 runs (2 earned ) on 3 hits and 2 walks with 5 strikeouts. He was probably hurt a little by the rain delay as he tried to come back out after the almost hour long break.
Otto finished the game for the Owls tossing 5 innings of scoreless baseball allowing just 2 hits and 3 walks with 5 strikeouts.
He, and everyone else in the stadium, thought he had given up the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth when Southern Miss’ Taylor Braley hit a ball as far as you could to left field, but it was caught just in front of the wall for the last out of the inning.
For Southern Miss, Mason Irby had three of the Golden Eagles five hits. They used five different pitchers in this game, but simply ran out of bullets after fighting through the loser’s bracket.
The Owls started out the season very slowly — injuries were certainly an issue — but finished strong winning 18 of their last 22 games, including CUSA Tournament games.
As for Southern Miss, I think they proved they are worthy a national seeding after fighting through the loser’s bracket to get in the CUSA Tournament Championship game.
