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 weekendseries against the Texas State Bobcats with a 3-1 record and were looking tobegin a new winning streak after losing to Texas A&M Corpus Christi onTuesday evening.

Facing a tough Bobcat squad that is picked to win the SouthlandConference, the Cougars drop the last two games of the series for a record of4-3 for the still young season.

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

The win was the first for the Cougars over the Bobcats since2008.

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

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

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

Appling contributed a 2-for-5 showing.

Casey Grayson scored the lone run for Houston on a ChaseJensen 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 theBobcats exploding for six runs on 13 hits with the Cougars managing only fivehits in the 6-0 loss.

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

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

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

Aaron Garza pitched 5.1 innings for Houston, giving up tworuns 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 6:30p.m. match up on Tuesday.

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