Arizona Baseball routes Rice to open first road trip of 2019

Houston, TX- The bats stayed hot for Arizona Baseball (5-0), as the Wildcats routed the Rice Owls to begin their first road trip of 2019.

With their first big test of 2019, the Arizona Baseball team traveled to Houston, TX this week to begin a long road trip against Rice and Houston.

If you may recall, over the weekend the Wildcats didn’t seem to have too much of a struggle, outscoring UMass Lowell 69-17 in the four-game sweep to begin the season.

Arizona Wildcats

Now against a tougher opponent, the Cats were hoping to keep the offensive momentum going against Rice.

From the beginning it was all Arizona, as the Wildcats opened the game, striking early and often! Arizona got to work quickly, scoring in the first inning when freshman Ryan Holgate would single up the middle, scoring Cameron Cannon from second to make it 1-0.

However, that’s all that would happen in that inning for the Cats.

Arizona would follow-up that inning with a one-run second, as well as a one-run third to make it 3-0 Arizona after three innings.

In steady control, Rice would finally get one back in the bottom of the fourth inning, but after that, it was all Arizona. The Wildcat offense would begin to take off, never seemingly looking back!

A two-run fifth inning was highlighted by the two-run blast hit by Donta Williams to make it 5-1 Cats, however, a three-run sixth, a three-run seventh and a five-run eighth would shadow all of Arizona’s offensive production before that.

The Wildcats would use a combination of timely hits, as well as capitalizing on eight, Owl errors to give them the 16-5 victory.

Arizona’s Avery Weems got the start tonight, pitching five solid innings, surrendering just two runs on four hits while ultimately earning the win!

The Wildcats would have Vince Vannelle, George Arias, Jr., Zach Sherman and Randy Abshier all come on in relief tonight, as the Wildcats completely stiffled the Owls.

Once again, the Cats were largely led by freshman sensation, Austin Wells, as the Las Vegas-based catcher went 3-6 on the evening with a team high, three RBI’s.

Matthew Dyer and Williams would have good games as well, accounting for two RBI’s a piece, while Cannon was a very impressive 4-5 from the plate!

With the win, the Wildcats improve to 5-0 on the year, with a talented Houston team on deck for this weekends slate of games.

At Zona Zealots, we’re proud of the way the Wildcats battled on Tuesday night, and are impressed with the offensive production of this team thus far! Bear Down, Arizona!