May 28, 2000

Box Score

HOUSTON (AP) - Jayme Sperring drove in two runs with a pair of doubles and Jon Skaggs struck a career-high 14 as Rice eliminated Texas Tech from the NCAA Houston Regional with a 11-4 victory Saturday night.

The Owls will face Houston in the championship game Sunday afternoon. The Cougars beat the Owls in a winner's bracket game earlier Saturday. If Rice wins, the two teams will immediately take the field for a second game, since the tournament is double-elimination.

Texas Tech had eliminated Princeton 10-1 in an earlier game in the losers' bracket on Saturday.

Skaggs (12-2) allowed four runs on six hits and walked two in the complete game effort.

The Owls took advantage of three Red Raider errors to score seven unearned runs.

Sperring doubled off the left field wall in the fifth, scoring Mitch Ackal, who had doubled, as the Owls increased their lead to 7-4.

Marco Cunningham hit a solo homer in the first and Scott Holzhauer added another during Tech's three-run third as the Red Raiders cut the Rice lead to 6-4.

The Owls scored four runs in the first on four hits and an error with Sperring's rbi double capping the outburst. The Owls added a pair of runs in the third on a single by Jesse Roman, an error, a single by Jeff Van Noy and a sacrifice fly by Jeff Van Noy to take a 6-1 lead.

Rice added four runs in the eighth.

Brett Smith, who increased his hitting streak to 16 games with a single in the sixth inning, drove in the Owls' eighth run. Matt Fox singled and later scored on an error and Jesse Roman drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to make it 10-4 and Ackal added an RBI single.