College of Charleston swept by Houston Cougars in college baseball series

Photo by Darla Tamulitis-La Vita Loca Photography

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2014 TexSport Publications

HOUSTON, TEXAS (March 23, 2014) The Houston Cougars raised their season record to 19-4 by sweeping their three-game series against the College of Charleston Cougars with a 7-1 win on Sunday, March 23, 2014 at Cougar Field in Houston Texas.

They also improved their record to 15-1 while playing at Cougar Field.

The Cougars kicked off the sweep on Friday, March 21, 2014, downing the Cougars 8-3 on the pitching of starter Aaron Garza.

The junior right-hander pitched the first complete game of his career, allowing only two earned runs, while striking out six.

With the win, he raised his record to 6-0 in 2014.

Sophomores Kyle Survance and Justin Montemayor each drove in three runs to aid in the effort.

On Saturday, March 22, they returned to Cougar Field to down CofC by the score of 3-2 for the win.

Sophomore starter Jake Lemoine improved to 4-1 on the year, going 5.0 innings while allowing just one hit and five walks in addition to six strikeouts.

On Sunday, March 23, starting pitcher Jared West struck out 11 batters in eight innings, and gave up a single run as Houston made it three-in-a-row by downing CofC by the score of 7-1.

College of Charleston fell to 16-7 after the sweep by Houston.

Houston head coach Todd Whitting talked about the sweep in his post-game meeting with the press:

"It was a great weekend for us, to be able to come out and sweep College of Charleston. I think that was the best team we've played all year. They're very offensive, and they are very physical. They pitch well throughout and their starting pitching is really good. We played well and we knew we had to play well coming into this series, to win it. To be able to sweep was big for us. Jared West today, was outstanding with 11 punch outs. He hadn't had great stuff the past couple of weeks, so it was encouraging to see him bounce back as we get ready for conference play."

Houston will next face cross-town rival Rice on Tuesday, March 25 in game two of their Silver Glove Series with the first pitch scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

The Cougars won game one of the series on February 19 when they downed the Owls by the score of 3-0 at Reckling Park.