Baseball Preps for C-USA Championship
5/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 19, 2009
Hattiesburg, Miss. - The University of Houston baseball team will open play at the 2009 Conference USA Championship against UAB at 9 a.m. on Wednesday at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg, Miss.
The Cougars will play the opening game at the league tournament for the third consecutive year. In addition this marks the 14th consecutive season that the Cougars will play in the postseason conference tournament, including the last 13 as a member of C-USA.
When Houston opens play against the Blazers it will mark the fourth time in two years the Cougars will be battling UAB in the league tournament. UH went 2-1 against the Blazers last season on their way to the 2008 Conference USA Tournament title.
The Cougars also opened league play against the Blazers this season on March 20-22, going 2-1 in the series.
Fans can follow all the tournament action by going to the C-USA Tournament Central Page at http://conferenceusa.cstv.com/championships/09-m-basebl-championship.html. There will also be a Tournament hotline available for fans at 601.266.7411. Information regarding weather and game time updates will be available on the hotline.
UH 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 be available for all games.
Each game of the championship will also be streamed live on ConferenceUSA.com. The championship game of the tournament on Sunday, May 24, will be televised on a same-day tape delay basis by CBS College Sports. The title game will air on CBS C at 6:30 p.m. CDT. The tournament champion receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.
UH holds 29-18 (.617) all-time record at the C-USA Championship, winning titles in 2008, 2000 and 1997. The Cougars also made three other C-USA Championship game appearances in 2006 (Rice), 2002 (East Carolina) and 1999 (Tulane).
However, this will be only the second time that the C-USA Championship will be held in Hattiesburg, Miss. In 2005, Houston entered the tournament as the No. 5 seed, going 2-2 with wins over UAB and East Carolina and defeats coming against East Carolina and Tulane.
In addition to the start of the C-USA Championship, the league office also announced the annual post season awards and five Cougars found themselves among the award winners.
Donnie Joseph led the Cougars with his selection to the All-Conference USA First Team. Joseph led the Cougars with nine saves and a 3-1 record on the mound. In addition, he has a team-high 74 strikeouts in 48 innings with a 2.25 ERA. This is the first league postseason award for Joseph.
Blake Kelso, Chris Wallace and Jared Ray were each selected to the All-Conference USA Second team. Kelso was an All-Freshman Team selection a year ago and leads the team with a .342 batting average, in addition to a team-high 16 doubles, three triples and two home runs. Earlier this week he was also named to the C-USA All-Academic team.
Wallace missed 18 games this season due to injury, but returned to lead the team with eight home runs and is second on the team with 31 RBI and has started 36 games this season for the Cougars at catcher. He was also named the C-USA Hitter of the Week on April 6. This is the first league honor for Wallace.
Ray put together a streak earlier this season of 31 consecutive scoreless innings, for the third longest streak in school history. He is 4-3 this season, including wins over Rice and a complete game shutout against Marshall in league play. Ray was named to the 2008 All-Tournament team but this is the first league postseason award.
In addition to the Cougars selection to the All-Conference team, Michael Goodnight was selected to the All-Freshman team after leading all starters with a 4.92 ERA in 56.2 innings, with 48 strikeouts. With his selection to the team, Houston has now had at least on selection to the All-Freshman team in the least four seasons and nine of the last 10 years.
