Houston Cougars Drops Weekend Baseball Series to Texas State

Taylor White is quickly becoming a contributor at the
plate and in the field for the Cougars.
Photo by Darla Tamulitis-La Vita Loco Photography
Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved.

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2012 TexSport Publications

HOUSTON, TEXAS (February 26, 2012) The Houston Cougars came into their three-game weekend series against the Texas State Bobcats with a 3-1 record and were looking to begin a new winning streak after losing to Texas A&M Corpus Christi on Tuesday evening.

Facing a tough Bobcat squad that is picked to win the Southland Conference, the Cougars drop the last two games of the series for a record of 4-3 for the still young season.

On Friday evening, the Cougars trailed the Bobcats 1-1 going into the bottom of the ninth when Jacob Lueneburg was hit by a Ross Gobel pitch with the bases loaded to allow Landon Appling to score and give the Cougars the game 2-1.

The win was the first for the Cougars over the Bobcats since 2008.

In Saturday’s game, the Cougars could not overcome the fire of the Bobcats bats, dropping a 6-1 decision.

The Cougars tallied 10 hits, but could not find the power to score any runs in the lop-sided victory.

Lueneburg continued to show promise at the plate, going 3-for-4 to lead the Cougars.

Appling contributed a 2-for-5 showing.

Casey Grayson scored the lone run for Houston on a Chase Jensen single up the third base line with Jordan Lewis credited with the loss.

In Sunday’s game, it was much more of the same, with the Bobcats exploding for six runs on 13 hits with the Cougars managing only five hits in the 6-0 loss.

Texas State got on the board in the top of the sixth with runs by Nick Smelser, Cody Perkins and Ben McElroy.

The Bobcats came back with another run in the eighth and two in the ninth.

The Cougars continued to struggle at the plate, with their five hits limited to singles and left 11 on base.

Aaron Garza pitched 5.1 innings for Houston, giving up two runs off six hits while facing 24 batters and striking out three. Houston used four pitchers in relief.

The Cougars will next face cross-town rival Rice in a 6:30 p.m. match up on Tuesday.

The Owls are currently 8-0 on the season and are ranked number five in the nation by Baseball America.