Yes, I am a bit bitter.

Rice baseball lost to the eventual college champions - AGAIN!

I agree with others. It may have been tough to beat LSU on a neutral site. I give us a good chance at home.

Still it would have been nice to get do it in the finals at Omaha.

Rice would have won as a road team in at least half of the superregional home sites. It would have been no problem.

I'm told we beat Texas, the runner-up, twice this year 2-0 record. I thought we lost to them once, but I did not look. Texas has gotten better and some of their hitters went crazy hot in the post season but Rice has also gotten better as the season progressed. We got our two starters back for the post season.

Texas' vaunted pitching held LSU down for two games but could not do it in the third game. Rice did not go as well.

But I think Rice would have beat those other teams. I think you can easily make the argument that Rice is the second best team in college baseball this year. SIGH.

Sour grapes
I cannot stand it. I thought since Rice lost and is done for the year that I would not be interesting in the college world series. But I cannot keep away. I am listening to the radio broadcast from Omaha every chance I get.

I cannot watch it, I don't have cable. I think I could watch online but I'd have to pay for that too. And online feeds are notoriously fickle.

This is the radio feed that I listen to on the radio when I am in Omaha. 1620 AM. The announcers are pretty good.

So now L.S.U. and Texas are into the winners bracket. It is highly likely these two teams will play a best two out of three for the CWS championship starting next Monday.

We are keeping it in the family so to speak. Next door neighbors and frequent opponents. Rice won two out of three from Texas during the season and I'd bet they would do it again if they had been paired in the super-regionals. But Rice was paired with L.S.U. on the road. Rice lost two in a row in a tough ballpark. Hey lets play them in a more neutral field, say in Omaha. I'd take my chances there.

We lost too many games to weak teams during the regular season. Therefore we did not get to host a Super-regional this year. It's our own fault. Ironically the team is still ranked #7. The polls say we should have been in Omaha. But games are played. It's not a beauty contest. Sour grapes.

I have to think we again lost to the eventual champion. We have done that in several years since Wayne Graham came in 1992. Sour grapes I know.

The boys had a great season. It fell short of the College World Series in Omaha this year. I am feeling a bit lost that I am not there. But there are other things. I'll get over it, eventually.

The regional was last weekend at Reckling Park. The four teams included were Kansas State University, Xavier, and Sam Houston State.

This looked on paper to be an easy regional. Of course you do not want to say that until it is over.

But we did have a tough first two games. Sam Houston State was a tough 4th seed. We had played them twice so they knew us well. They played tough and close, but we did win. Taylor Wall pitched pretty well as did their ace.

The next day we faced Kansas State in the winners bracket game. Since the third seed was about as easy as they came they had saved their ace for us. Their other starter was pretty good but not like their ace. Still we scored a few runs on him, more than most other teams did. And we had our ace, Ryan Berry. They nicked him too. A reliever for Rice did not have it so when Berry left some of the runners he left on base scored. We we down 4-3 until one bad relief job took us down 7-3. But in the ninth we scored three times on their ace who was going to finish the game, win or lose. He made 140 pitches and managed to hang on for a 7-6 victory.

That put Rice into the losers bracket having to play an extra game before we could reface KSU.

So on Sunday Rice had to play Xavier in the first game. Sam Houston State must have had a big letdown to let Xavier beat them on Saturday but they did. Xavier really had little left. Rice skipped pitching their third best starter going with Jerad Rogers. Jerad had been the one who let Southern Miss back into the game last week but today he did very well. He had a rough first inning but after that was strong for seven innings. By then Rice was well ahead and a couple of other pitchers finished the game.

Now Sunday night was faced KSU again. Rice pitched our third starter Mike Ojala. Mike does not look fully healed from his injuries of this season but he pitched well, had good off speed pitches, kept the hitters offstride and threw strikes. KSU had no chance. So we won handily. That set up the Monday decider which would come at 6 PM.

I missed my other commitment to see this game. It was great. They started a top reliever. We started Jordan Rogers a reliever who has not been going well of late. Jordan did not have it. He gave up a couple of runs in 2.2 innings. So WG put his genius cap on and found Matt Reckling. Reckling got out of the third and pitched scoreless ball into the seventh. Then Ryan Berry finished again as he did in Hattiesburg. Meanwhile Rice had been hitting anyone KSU put out there. Rice got 18 hits and 13 runs. Was it 13-2 or 13-4 I cannot recall without looking. Anyway it was decisive and Rice won the Houston regional despite losing the second game. KSU really had little left after their ace was used up. After pitching 140 pitches on Saturday he was not available any more.

It's been a while. Rice won in Hattiesburg. The last game versus Southern Miss was pretty rough. The crowd was loud and boisterous. The place was almost full. People can tailgate out behind right field. Regular contributors can use a private area chained off from the public. Hattiesburg is hilly. Behind right field is a rise that makes for perfect viewing while grilling whatever you want.

The stadium is old, build a bit like Reckling used to be before the last upgrade. But the seats are even older. Maybe they are a bit wider though. That's good.

There are a few more Rice faithful here today. You could count them on two hands on Wednesday but today there are maybe triple that.

We got ahead, they caught up, we got ahead again, they caught up again. Then we scored two in the seventh or eighth, can't recall from memory. Then WG brought in Ryan Berry to pitch the last two innings. He delivered and we won 8-6.

It made the trip back much more fun. I took I-20 west to I-59, a trip that turned out to be at least 100 miles longer. It was not worth it. Next time, if there is a next time, I will know.

The only saving grace was passing by historical Vicksburg. I'd forgotten that was in Mississippi. I could have detoured to see the Civil War battle site but I did not.

I drove into our driveway about 11 PM. It took close to 10 hours to get home.