Husker Baseball Looking for Wins At Rice Invitational

The Husker baseball team will be looking for more wins this weekend against Texas A&M- Corpus Christi, Elon, and Rice this weekend in the Rice Invitational in Houston, Texas.

The Huskers start the tourney off at 1:00 pm Friday against TAMU-CC, one of the favorite whipping boys of the Big 12. TAMU-CC finished last in the Southland Conference last season with a 9-24 record, and it's doubtful things will get much better this season for them. They come into the weekend at 3-0, with wins over Prairie View and Houston-Victoria. They return a fair amount of pitching experience, but lost a lot of their offense from last season. Anyone can beat anyone whenever, but Nebraska should pick up a win here.

Up next is Rice, one of the perennial powerhouses in college baseball. The Owls come into the weekend at 0-4 after being swept by Stanford last weekend (the first time the Owls have been swept in a three-game series in five years), and then losing to Lamar mid-week. Rice finished the 2009 season after losing in the Baton Rouge super regional, eliminating Kansas State, then losing two games to eventual CWS champion LSU.

Rice is typically known for their great pitching, although that may not be the case this year unless some youngsters come around. I'd chalk the 0-4 record up to a bad opening week until things are proven otherwise. They're still ranked ninth (BA), Wayne Graham is still a great coach, and they have this 3B Anthony Rendon guy who hit 20 homers, 72 RBI and a .388 average last season.

And then there's Elon. What the heck is an Elon? Elon University is a private college located between Greensboro and Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill. It costs $33,725 per year for tuiton, fees, and room and board, but the upside is they have a 59/41 female to male ratio on campus. They used to be known as the "Fightin' Christians" (What, Jesus got angry at them?) but since that's apparently not cool anymore now they're known as "Pheonix", joining the ranks of the extremely bland new nickname club.

Elon made the NCAA tourney last year, and is expected to win the Southern Conference this season. They come into this weekend with a 4-0 record, with wins over Towson, Ohio, North Carolina AT&T and High Point.

This is Elon's first-ever meeting between Nebraska and Texas. In fact, it's the first time Elon has ever played a time from either state. I can understand Nebraska, but how can you get this far and have never played a Texas team, there's only about 300,000 of them. Wow.

Elon will be a challenge, don't discount them because they're from some small college in the east. In fact, be worried, because Elon has aleady scored 10 runs in the eighth inning while allowing only nine total runs this year.

Nebraska Schedule

Friday - vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (2-0), 1 p.m.
Saturday - at No. 9 Rice (0-4), 4:30 p.m.
Sunday - vs. Elon (4-0), Noon

Media Info
Live Radio: Huskers.com - streamed
Live Stats:  Huskers.com
Live Video: Friday and Sunday's game on HuskersNside; Saturday on Riceowls.com
Television:  Hahahahahaah, television? Are you serious? Television doesn't understand college baseball!


Probable Starting Pitchers
Friday
NU - Sean Yost, So., RHP (0-0, 4.91 ERA)  
TAMU-CC - Ian Campbell, Jr., RHP (1-0, 0.00 ERA)

Saturday
Michael Mariot, So., RHP (0-1, 9.00 ERA)
Rice - Taylor Wall, So., LHP (0-1, 9.00 ERA)

Sunday
Tom Lemke, Fr., RHP (1-0, 0.00 ERA)
Elon - Daniel Britt, Sr., RHP (1-0, 0.00 ERA)