University of Houston Athletics
Baseball Preview: Week Four
3/9/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 9, 2009
HOUSTON - The University of Houston baseball team will host a mid-week match-up against Sam Houston State on Tuesday before taking to the road for their first trip outside of the state of Texas for a series against Pacific over the weekend.
The Cougars will host the Bearkats in a single game at Cougar Field on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Houston is 73-71 all-time against Sam Houston State, and has won the last 13 contests dating back to 1999. Head coach Rayner Noble is 18-4 all-time against the Bearkats.
SHSU enters Tuesday's game with a 10-4 overall record after sweeping Texas-Arlington in its Southland Conference opener. They are led at the plate by Nick Zaleski who is hitting .420 with six doubles, a home run and 12 RBI. On the mound, Jacob Howard leads the Bearkats with a 2.29 ERA in 19.2 innings, with six runs allowed, 21 strikeouts and seven walks.
Following the mid-week game, Houston will leave the state of Texas for the first time this season for a three-game series against Pacific. This will be the second time that the two program's have met for a weekend-series. They two schools faced off at Cougar Field last season and Houston is 2-1 in those games.
The Tigers are 3-7 after going 0-3 against San Jose State over the weekend. They are led by J.B. Brown who is batting .389 with three doubles, a home run and 10 RBI. Joey Centanni leads all pitchers with a 1.35 ERA in 20.0 innings. He has given up six runs, four walks and struck out eight batters.
Houston is 3-10 this season. The Cougars closed out a series against Cal Poly on Sunday with a 3-2 win, snapping an eight game losing streak. Pitcher Michael Goodnight pitched seven innings, allowing three hits, two runs and no walks with six strikeouts to improve to 2-0 on the season. Blake Kelso snapped a 2-2 tie in the seventh inning, hitting a RBI single scoring Taylor White to give UH the win.
Fans can hear all games live on UHCougars.com with second-year announcer Jeremy Branham calling the play-by-play action and former UH letterwinner Pat Cauley providing the analysis.
Live stats through game tracker will also be available for all games.
LOOKING AHEAD
Next week Houston will return home for two mid-week games at Lamar on March 17 and at home against Rice on March 18 before opening conference play with a three-game series against UAB on March 20-22.
