Woo hoo! The Rice Owls baseball team is going to Omaha for the College World Series for the second straight year and fourth time overall. They came back from an opening game loss in the best-two-of-three Super Regional against the University of Houston in fine fashion. Now, as Kevin notes, Rice needs to do something in Omaha. I have this vision of Rice getting a reputation like the Atlanta Braves from the 1990s, being perceived somehow as underacheivers or worse "losers" because they couldn't leverage all of their sucecss into a title. Winning sure can do strange things to a team.
Anyway, congrats to the Coogs for overcoming their early season difficulties and getting farther than anyone would have predicted a few weeks ago. As far as I'm concerned, any season that includes knocking the Aggies out of the playoffs has to be considered a success.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on June 09, 2003 to Baseball | TrackBackWhen you consider how hard it is for a team to even get to the College World Series, it's hard to consider Rice University as anything but winners. The fact that they had to beat a "crosstown rival" (Houston) to even get there is even more impressive. Even though the eastern colleges are almost never represented here (that's OK, we have lacrosse), this is probably one of the most interesting tournaments to watch.
If nothing else, Rice will have the most distinct uniforms in the tournament.
Posted by: William Hughes on June 9, 2003 4:50 PMPersonally I'm rooting for a Rice-LSU final which given the quality of Rice's pitching would favor the Owls.
Although my Tigers did destroy Baylor 20-5 yesterday in Alex Box and consider Rosenblatt a second home. Ahhh, I love this time of year.
Posted by: Patrick on June 9, 2003 5:09 PMWilliam, I never thought I would say this for a Rice athletics team...but we expect more than just a visit to the World Series...wow, I had to reread that a few times, to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
Posted by: Blake on June 10, 2003 12:26 PM