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.