University of Houston Athletics
Baseball to Meet No. 35 Long Beach State this Weekend
3/10/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 10, 2005
LONG BEACH, Calif. - For the first time all season, University of Houston baseball team will head out of the city limits when it meets No. 35 Long Beach State at Blair Field this weekend in the team's final non-conference weekend series before Conference USA play begins.
The series opens at 8:30 p.m., (CST) Friday, continues at 4 p.m. (CST), Saturday and wraps up at 3 p.m. (CST), Sunday.
All three games can be heard live on the Internet at www.UHCougars.com with former Cougar players Nick Torina and Pat Cauley calling all the action. The pregame show is slated to begin 15 minutes before first pitch.
Fans also can follow the action by clicking on the "Gametracker" link at www.UHCougars.com.
The Cougars will be riding a wave of momentum into the series against the Dirtbags as winners of each of their last three games. Most recently, UH claimed a 4-0 shutout of Sam Houston State on Tuesday in the finale of a season-best seven-game homestand.
Junior southpaw Matt Farrington makes his team-leading fifth start of the season on Friday in the series opener against No. 35 Long Beach State.
This season, the Sugar Land, Texas, native has compiled a 2-0 record with 13 strikeouts and a team-leading 3.10 ERA in 20.0 innings. He is the only Cougar lefthander to start a game this season.
In his last outing, Farrington was the victim of some porous defense behind him, leading to four unearned runs in the series opener against Loyola Marymount on March 4 He also scattered seven hits with a walk and strikeout in five innings of work against the Lions.
This will be the first time that Farrington has faced Long Beach State from the mound. However, he did appear in all three games at Cougar Field in 2004, drawing a pair of walks and playing errorless ball in the outfield in nine total chances.
Sophomore Brad Lincoln, who is scheduled to start the series finale on Sunday, leads the Cougars with a .333 batting average. Sophomore shortstop Dustin Kingsbury is tops with 10 RBIs and brings a career-best and team-high seven-game hitting streak into the series. Junior outfielder Travis Tully leads the way with a pair of home runs.
Tuesday's 4-0 win over area rival Sam Houston State marked the end of a season-long seven-game homestand for the Cougars. In fact, it was the end of a 15-game stretch for the Cougars in which they never left the Houston city limits.
Besides 11 home games, the Cougars have played three games at the Houston Astros' Minute Maid Park and one at crosstown rival Rice's Reckling Park.
This weekend's showdown at Long Beach State will be the first time this season that the Cougars have left their home city.
This weekend's series also marks the seventh consecutive season that the Cougars play in California as part of their regular-season schedule. The western swing began in 1999 when the Cougars squared off at Cal State Fullerton in a three-game series and has been continued every year since that time.
Long Beach State owns a 1-3 (.250) record in the all-time series, which began in February 1990 at the Olive Garden Classic in St. Kissimmee, Fla., where the Dirtbags took a 3-0 win.
The series resumed in 2004 when LBSU visited Houston for a three-game series. LBSU won the first two games of that series (6-1 and 4-1) before UH rebounded with a 4-2 win in the series finale.
This weekend's series will be the first time that the Cougars and Dirtbags have squared off on LBSU's home field.
Long Beach State (12-7) comes into the series after a 6-4 win over Loyola Marymount on Tuesday night. In that game, shortstop Evan Longoria went 5-for-4 with three runs, while second baseman Chuck Sindlinger finished 4-for-4 with a pair of RBIs.
Catcher Chris Jones leads LBSU with a .391 batting average, while first baseman Brandon Godfrey is tops with 14 RBIs. Sindlinger has hit the Dirtbags' only homer of the season.
Southpaw Cesar Ramos is scheduled to take the hill for LBSU in the series opener. This season, he has assembled a 3-2 record with 33 strikeouts and a 1.89 ERA in 38.0 innings to lead the team in all three pitching Triple Crown categories.
