HOUSTON – The Ragin’ Cajuns have an opponent.
Finally.
UL will face Rice at 1 p.m. Monday in the NCAA Houston Regional at Cougar Field here, something decided only after a 20-inning – yes, 20-inning – marathon here.
Rice beat No. 1 Regional seed Houston in a losers-bracket game that ended after 2 a.m. and remains alive with one loss in the four-team, double-elimination Regional.
Rice took a 2-0 lead in the top of the fifth, Houston cut it in half in the bottom of the inning and Houston’s Corey Julks tied the game at 2-2 with a monstrous solo homer to left in the bottom of the eighth.
Leon Byrd broke for the Owls with RBI double in the top of the 20th, and Rice made it through the bottom of the 20th by throwing out a runner trying to stretch a single into a double, a flyout to right and a flyout to left.
The game last six hours and two minutes, ended at 2:07 a.m., involved 573 combined pitches and had 155 plate appearances.
UL advanced to Monday’s 1 p.m. game with a 2-1 win over Houston earlier on Sunday, scoring both of its runs in the bottom of the ninth and winning after Tyler Girouard was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to force in Joe Robbins.
If UL, which has won its first two Regional games, wins Monday’s 1 p.m. game, it wins the Regional and will the winner of the LSU-hosted Baton Rouge Regional later this week.
If UL loses the 1 p.m., the same two teams will play an if-necessary game at 6 p.m. Monday.
Via– Tim Buckley, theadvertiser