Ranked Cougars in town Tuesday
4/14/2014 4:51:00 PM | Baseball
Sam Houston State baseball will host the No. 12 Houston Cougars at Don Sanders Stadium Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday night is 50 Cent Hot Dog Night at Don Sanders Stadium. The Bearkats (25-11) and Cougars (26-9) will meet up again next week at Cougar Field.
The all-time series is tied at 77 games apiece and the teams have split the series each of the last four seasons. From 2010-12 the home team won every matchup but last season the team's won on each other's home field.
Houston has had an outstanding season, rising as high as seventh in the nation last week in the PerfectGame.org poll. The Cougars also took the season series against rival Rice for the first time since 2000. Last weekend UH hit a bump in the road and were swept by Louisville.
The Cougars are batting .266 as a team but the story has been the pitching staff which has compiled a 1.81 combined earned run average. The weekend starters, Aaron Garza, Jake Lemoine and Jared West, have combined for 13 wins and all sit below the 3.00 ERA mark through their nine starts this season.
“Houston is very good and they can really pitch, they're playing well defensively, and they hit enough,” head coach David Pierce said. “They've been fortunate with some timely hits but they can really pitch and put a lot of pressure on teams.”
Sam Houston has won six straight games and back-to-back league series after sweeping Abilene Christian. The Bearkats had gone 3-7 over a ten-game stretch before rattling off the longest winning streak of the season.
Senior catcher Anthony Azar leads the team in batting average (.362), slugging (.600), RBI (31), home runs (8) and extra-base hits (14). Those numbers also put him at or near the top in the Southland this season.
Azar is also managing a pitching staff that has the best staff ERA in the Southland and one of the tops in the nation, at 2.52. Freshman Sam Odom is among the nation's leaders with seven wins and also has an outstanding 1.62 ERA in 50 innings pitched. He is one of three freshman pitchers with seven wins.
Center fielder Colt Atwood leads the league with 53 hits. Shortstop Corey Toups had an explosion of power last week, hitting three homers in the series against ACU. Third baseman Carter Burgess leads the team with 12 doubles and is the only Bearkat with double digit two-baggers.
“We've had some consistency with pitching and defense in the last six games. We also have continued to play the entire game no matter the score and we've had some late comebacks which have built some confidence for our guys to continue playing hard until the end of the game,” Pierce added.
The Kats hit the road this weekend for a three-game league series against Lamar. Sam Houston is making the trip to Beaumont for the third consecutive season.
