University of Houston Athletics
Crain Honored as Conference USA Pitcher of the Week
4/1/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 1, 2002
HOUSTON, Texas - After helping lead the fifth-ranked University of Houston baseball team to a pair of wins at No. 34 Southern Mississippi last weekend, junior Jesse Crain was honored Monday as the Conference USA Pitcher of the Week.
Crain, who was named C-USA Hitter of the Week on Feb. 25, became only the second player in league history to win both the weekly pitching and hitting awards during the same season. Memphis' Craig House accomplished the feat first on the same day, sweeping both awards on March 2, 1998.
The Boulder, Colo., did a little of everything in Sunday's 7-6 win in 13 innings against the Golden Eagles. Crain collected his fourth straight win to open the season after striking out a career-best eight batters with only one hit in a personal high 5.0 innings of work.
With that performance, he ran his consecutive inning scoreless streak to 21.0 innings and has not allowed an earned run to score in 22.1 innings to date.
However, Crain was also instrumental in the Cougars' success at the plate. In the top of the 13th inning, he started a rally with a single up the middle and eventually scored the game-winning run on Brett Cooley's infield groundout.
He is tied for the team lead with a .336 batting average and has added eight doubles and three home runs.
Crain leads his Cougar teammates into Game Four of the Silver Glove Series when UH plays host to No. 3 Rice at 7 p.m. at Cougar Field.
