Cougars clinch Don Sanders Cup in win over Sam Houston

Not often does a team finish a game with an error differential of four or more and come out the winner, but that’s exactly what Houston baseball did Tuesday night at Don Sanders Stadium to bring the Don Sanders Cup back on Cullen Boulevard.

In order to reclaim it in a 5-4 win, the Cougars had to withstand a 1-for-15 stretch that carried into the final two innings, still trailing 2-1. 

Freshman right-handed reliever Zach Alarid retired the first six Cougars he saw, including a groundout by freshman outfielder Blake Fields to begin the eighth inning.

However, a pair of singles from redshirt sophomore  utility Xavier Perez and junior catcher Riley Jackson chased Alarid out of the game, bringing in senior reliever Zak Johnson. 

Houston would send 11 batters to the plate in the inning, turning a one-run deficit into a three-run lead, capped off by a sacrifice fly to right field off the bat of senior infielder Tyler Cox. 

Just moments afterward in the bottom-half of the frame, Sam Houston loaded the bases with no outs, as senior reliever Ryne Rodriguez’s control over the strike zone had begun to evade him. 

Already responsible for a walk and hit-by-pitch, Rodriguez uncorked a wild pitch far off enough to plate senior outfielder Jeric Curtis, shrinking Houston’s lead to two. 

Two batters later, junior infielder Sean Bazmore’s sacrifice fly to shallow right field brought the deficit to just one.

Rodriguez would retire the next five batters he’d face, totaling 2 ⅓ innings pitched and sealing rubbermatch of the Don Sanders Cup, while picking up his first win as a Cougar.

It was the fourth time Houston had clinched the cup since 2017, when it first began.

Houston will next make the hour-long bus ride back to campus, where it will await BYU for the beginning of a weekend series on Thursday, April 9 at 6:30 p.m.