University of Houston Athletics
Baseball Preview: Week 12
5/4/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 4, 2009
HOUSTON - The University of Houston baseball team will close out the 2009 home schedule this week, hosting McNeese State on Tuesday and East Carolina in a weekend series.
The Cougars enter the week with a 22-25 record and an 11-7 conference mark.
Last week, Houston defeated McNeese State, 6-3, in Lake Charles, La., and went 1-2 against cross-town rival Rice in the annual Silver Glove Series finale.
On Tuesday, UH will play their final non-conference game of the year when they welcome McNeese State to Cougar Field at 6:30 p.m. The Cowboys are 20-25 on the season and 9-18 in Southland Conference play. They went 1-3 last weekend after falling to the Cougars in a mid-week match-up and going 1-2 against Lamar in their conference series.
Matt Fontenot leads the Cowboys at the plate. The junior posts a .358 batting average with seven doubles and three home runs. McNeese State is led on the mound by Scott Holstein, who holds a 3.89 ERA in 37 innings.
In the last outing against the Cowboys, Houston put six-straight runners on base in the second inning, scoring three runs for the early lead. They added three final runs in the sixth inning, fueled by a triple from Jake Runte. The Cowboys scored three late runs to cut the deficit in half but UH was able to come away with the win in their final mid-week road contest of the season.
Following the mid-week contest, Houston will close out their home slate against No. 24 East Carolina. The Pirates have a 35-14 overall record and sit one game ahead of the Cougars at second in league standings with a 12-6 mark. Houston is 12-15 all-time against ECU, going 2-1 in the series last season, in addition to taking two wins at the C-USA Championship.
Last week, ECU swept a non-conference series against Louisiana-Lafayette in Greenville, N.C. and lost to Elon in a mid-week contest. Trent Whitehead holds a team-best .379 batting average going into the series. He also has 16 doubles, two triples and five home runs. Pitcher Chris Heston's 3.00 ERA paces the team. He has gone 69 innings, allowing 58 hits, 36 runs and a team-high 69 strikeouts.
Friday and Saturday's game are scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. start with Sunday's game slated to begin at 1 p.m. Prior to Sunday's home finale, Houston will honor its two senior baseball players, Jimmy Raviele and Chris Wright prior to the game.
Fans can also 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 this week.
Following the Cougars' games this week, they will travel to UCF for the regular season finale. The series will be played on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The game times have been changed to start on Thursday at 5:30 p.m., continue on Friday at 5:30 p.m. and conclude on Saturday at 12:15 p.m.
