Rice Athletics weekend updates
It was a busy weekend for the Rice Owls. Several teams were in action, from cross country to soccer to swimming to football. With this in mind, here are a couple of the Owls’ highlights.
It was a busy weekend for the Rice Owls. Several teams were in action, from cross country to soccer to swimming to football. With this in mind, here are a couple of the Owls’ highlights.
In its first game this season against a Power Five-conference opponent, Rice’s football team struggled to get into the game, losing to Wake Forest University 56-24. The Owls came into the contest having lost their last three games, most recently against conference rival University of Southern Mississippi. The game against Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina was the third road matchup in a row for Rice.
Brown College defeated Martel College 13-7 in Powderpuff’s opening regular season game in Sunday’s wet conditions.
In its first home tournament of the year, the Rice men’s tennis team hosted the Texas Tamale Invitational over the weekend. Freshman Adam Oscislawski highlighted the tournament for the Owls with a win in straight sets on Sunday to take third place in the B Draw singles.
The problem with hope is that it fades as long as success isn’t present. That’s why the average tenure of an FBS football coach is just 3.8 years, according to Business Insider. Any coach can sell hope for year one and year two, but without success by year three, they’re out the door.
Rice basketball has picked up a total of eight verbal commitments recently, with five on the women’s side and three on the men’s side. The commitments from these players come roughly two months before the first date they can officially sign.
In a scene eerily reminiscent of the 2017 Owls and their anemic offense, the Rice football team gained only 262 total yards in a 40-22 loss to the University of Southern Mississippi on Saturday. The loss dropped Rice’s record to 1-3 for the year and handed the Owls a defeat in their conference opener.
It’s 10:30 p.m. on a hot August night as the women’s club ultimate frisbee team wraps up the first of their twice-weekly practices. Mosquitoes hover over the moisture-soaked field and the humidity is palpable in the evening air. The players gather together in a huddle and begin to chant.
The defending regular-season Conference USA champion Rice soccer team notched its first conference win on Sunday night, following a heartbreaking 3-2 home loss to Middle Tennessee State University on Thursday with a 3-1 defeat of the visiting University of Texas, San Antonio Roadrunners.
While both the soccer and football teams had last weekend off, there was still plenty of action to go around in the Rice sports world. Here are a few highlights from the Owls’ weekend slate.
It was almost 20 years ago that redshirt senior running back Austin Walter’s father first realized his son might have a future in the football world.
The Rice volleyball team dispatched three non-conference opponents on its way to a perfect record at the Rice Adidas Invitational II held in Tudor Fieldhouse last weekend.
In less than two weeks, a matchup on Sept. 22 between Lovett College and Sid Richardson College will kick off the opening weekend of Rice Powderpuff.
Last September, I wrote a column in the Rice Thresher titled “Rice football must build a winning culture.” In the article, I pleaded for Rice to make two changes: 1) fire its then-head football coach David Bailiff, and 2) liven its mundane stadium atmosphere.
For Rice’s 11 residential colleges, a new freshman flag football season means hope is renewed for a championship run.
Not even a lightning strike could deter the Rice men’s and women’s cross country teams on Friday. After their races were delayed due to a nearby storm, both teams responded with strong performances in the season-opening Norry Hersey Rice Invitational. The men’s team emerged victorious with a win over second-place University of Houston, while the women’s team finished second only to perennial powerhouse University of Texas.
Another week, another closer-than-expected loss for Rice football. The Owls entered their game against the University of Hawaii as a 17.5-point underdog, according to ESPN, and lost by a score of 43-29. That scoreline is actually somewhat misleading—for much of the fourth quarter, it was a one-possession game. After another encouraging defeat, here are some takeaways for the Owls.
It has been a somewhat slow start for the Rice Owls soccer team over the first three weeks of the 2018 season. Last year, the Owls were once ranked No. 24 in the nation and earned a spot in the 2017 NCAA Women’s Soccer Championship tournament.
After winning its first two matches of the Rice Adidas Invitational, the volleyball team entered Saturday night’s match against Houston Baptist University with hopes of completing a tournament sweep.
It was hard to know what to expect coming into this year’s edition of the Bayou Bucket. All of the athletic department’s talk of an offseason turnaround was well and good, but after a narrow victory over an FCS school in the season opener, there was some question as to whether the Owls’ “Intellectual Brutality” mantra was, well, brutal enough.