HOUSTON (April 5, 2019) – The FIU baseball team fell on Friday night in a 8-5 decision to the Rice Owls.
With the loss, the Panthers fall to 11-19 and 2-8 in Conference USA play. Rice moves to 14-18 and 5-5 in the league.
Matt Canterino pitched a complete game to earn the win for the Owls.
Will Saxton suffered the loss after giving up two runs during an inning worth of work.
Logan Allen was given a no-decision for allowing three runs over six innings, while striking out six Owls.
Austin Shenton and
Javier Valdes are once again tied atop the Panthers' home run list with six as each member of the infield duo hit a ball deep into the Houston skyline on Friday night.
Jose Garcia,
Angel Tiburcio and
Jarrett Ford each added a base hit to the FIU cause.
Rice opened the scoring in the top of the first with a two-run homer to take an early lead. Garcia and Tiburcio started the FIU four-run second inning with back-to-back walks before Ford recorded a base knock to left to score Garcia. Tiburcio and Ford came around to score when Shenton went deep in the next at-bat to push the Panther lead to 4-2. With Shenton's three RBIs on Friday, the junior leads all FIU batters with 27.
Rice cut the lead to one in the fourth before Valdes hit his solo shot in the sixth. Tiburcio recorded his first-career extra base hit in the seventh with a double to the right-center gap.
The Owls scored two in the home half of the seventh and three in the eighth to prevail in the weekend opener 8-5.
UP NEXT
FIU and Rice will play two on Saturday due to the threat of serve weather in the Houston area on Sunday.
SOCIAL MEDIA
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