UTSA baseball hits the road

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After playing 18 of their first 21 games at home the UTSA Roadrunners baseball team has embarked on a weeklong tour of Texas. It began Tuesday at UT-RGV and continues this weekend in Houston against Rice. More on that below but first a look back at the week that was for the Roadrunner baseball team.

UTSA entered their series with Florida Atlantic last Friday as the proud owners of a seven game winning streak.

The Roadrunners were able to push that winning streak to 10 with a weekend sweep of Florida Atlantic. UTSA won the game on Friday night, 8-2 and then swept a doubleheader on Sunday by scores of 7-2 and 5-3.

Luke Malone picked up his second win of the season on Friday after throwing 7.1 innings and striking out six Owl hitters. Simon Miller picked up the final 1.2 innings in relief and didn't allow a hit while striking out two Owl hitters.

Leyton Barry was able to extend his hitting streak to 13 games. Shane Sirdashney and Caleb Hill both racked up three hits on Friday night. Sirdashney was 3-for-5 with two runs and an RBI. Hill went 3-for-4 with two RBIs.

UTSA and Florida Atlantic were scheduled to play the second game of the series on Saturday. Weather caused that game to be moved to Sunday before the third game of the series.

The Roadrunners won the first game of the doubleheader 7-2. Ulises Quiroga picked up the win to improve to 4-0 on the season. Quiroga threw 6.1 of the seven innings, giving up five hits and two runs while striking out nine Owls. Barry had his 13-game hitting streak snapped in the first game of the doubleheader. Hill went 2-for-2 with two runs and two runs batted in.

In the second game of the doubleheader UTSA won 5-3. The Roadrunners used four pitchers in the seven inning game. Simon Miller picked up the win to move his season record to 5-0. Miller threw 2.2 innings, giving up four hits and two runs while striking out two batters.

Barry went 2-for-4 to start a new hit streak. Barry also scored a run and had a run batted in. Isaiah Walker was 2-for-3 with a run scored and two runs batted in.

On Tuesday, the Roadrunners went down to Edinburg to take on the UT-RGV Vaqueros. UTSA carried its 10-game winning streak into the game just two wins away from tying the 1994 Roadrunners 12-game win streak as the longest in program history.

UT-RGV, unaware of the history UTSA was chasing, put a halt to the Roadrunner win streak by beating the Roadrunners 5-3. Drake Smith was saddled with the loss, his first of the season. Smith went two innings, giving up three runs on three hits.

UTSA got all three of its runs on solo home runs. Hill, Taylor Smith and Antonio Valdez were responsible for the home runs. Valdez has now reached base safely in every game the Roadrunners have played this year.

This weekend the Roadrunners travel to Houston to take on a Rice Owls team that is also 3-0 in conference play after sweeping the series against UAB in Birmingham.

Rice enters the weekend series with an overall record of 11-10. The Owls have been tougher to beat at Reckling Park as they boast a 6-3 record at home compared to 4-5 on the road. Rice is 1-2 in neutral site games, all three of those coming at the start of this month in the Shriners Hospital College Classic at Minute Maid Park in Houston.

The Owls as a team have a batting average of .238. Three Owls are hitting better than .300 this season. Rice pitching has a .273 batting average against them. The Owls have scored 105 runs this season and opponents have scored 120 runs.

UTSA and Rice will play at 6 p.m. on Friday night, 2 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Rice leads the all-time series vs UTSA, 19-14 and are 10-9 against the Roadrunners at Reckling Park. In the most recent meeting last April, Rice won 16-7 to snap UTSA's four-game winning streak in the series.

The Roadrunners and Owls will meet again in San Antonio the weekend of May 5-7. It's also possible they see each other again at Reckling Park the last weekend of May as the Conference USA tournament will be there that weekend.

After this weekend series at Rice the Roadrunners will close out its road trip with a visit to Texas A&M Corpus Christi on Tuesday at 6 p.m. UTSA will return home next weekend to host the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers for a three-game series.

FORUMS: UTSA Boulevard | Roadrunner Way