The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB Baseball Closes Regular Season At First-Place Rice
5/19/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 19, 2010
Game Notes 
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- With the tightest Conference USA baseball race in recent memory coming down to the season's final weekend, UAB hits the road for a three-game series at first-place Rice.
The Blazers (27-23, 10-11 C-USA) and 21st-ranked Owls (33-19, 15-6 C-USA) open the series Thursday at 6:30 p.m. CT at Reckling Park in Houston, and play continues with game two Friday at 6:30 p.m. and game three Saturday at 1 p.m.
With 21 league games in the books, only two teams -- Rice and Southern Miss -- have locked up a spot in the season-ending conference tournament. The other seven teams will be fighting it out this week for the four remaining spots in the newly-reformatted, six-team event next week at the University of Houston.
UAB helped its chances last weekend by taking two out of three games from Tulane, including Sunday's come-from-behind series clincher, to remain in a fifth-place tie with East Carolina. The Blazers and Pirates are one game ahead of seventh-place Tulane and Houston and two games up on ninth-place UCF.
First baseman Luke Stewart homered three times in the Tulane series and has gone deep eight times in the past 13 games to raise his season-total to 19. He ranks second in the conference behind Rice's Anthony Rendon with 22. Stewart also owns 47 homers in his three-year UAB career and is two away from tying the Blazers' all-time record.
Center fielder Jamal Austin had another good series against Tulane, going 6-for-14 with four runs scored as the Blazers hit .355 as a team against the Green Wave. Austin continues to lead the conference with 28 stolen bases, and he ranks third in league-only batting average at .443.
Rendon, the reigning Conference USA Player of the Year, paces the Rice offensive attack with a .386 batting average, an .815 slugging percentage and 69 RBI in 52 games. The Owls are hitting .322 as a team and feature three more players with at least 10 home runs in Rick Hague (11), Jeremy Rathjen (11) and Michael Ratterree (10).
Rice won two out of three games last weekend from Southern Miss, snapping the Golden Eagles' streak of three straight conference series sweeps. The Owls then played cross-town rival Houston on Tuesday night, earning a 15-5 win.
Rice enters the week as the top pitching team in C-USA with a 4.66 ERA. The Owls will send right-hander Jared Rogers (6-1, 5.04 ERA) to the mound for Thursday's series opener, and UAB will counter with right-hander Mitch Kloskowski (5-4, 4.57 ERA).
In the all-time series between Rice and UAB, the Owls won the first 10 meetings, but the Blazers have taken three of the past five, including a 2-1 series victory last year in Birmingham to close out the regular season.
