Jackson’s ninth-inning homer clinches Houston’s fifth straight Silver Glove series title

HOUSTON– Riding a 2-for-14 stretch at the plate, Houston baseball needed an answer to break a late 3-3 tie in a game where its start was delayed 70 minutes by weather. 

That uncertainty, if the long night would end in its favor, grew when junior right-hander Jackson Blank retired the first two Cougars on four pitches in the top of the ninth. 

Junior catcher Riley Jackson, however, not only ended that uncertainty, but ultimately clinched Houston its fifth straight Silver Glove series title on the first pitch he saw from Blank, unloading a go-ahead solo home run to left towards its 4-3 win over Rice Tuesday at Reckling Park. 

“I wasn’t having the best day, so I just had the mindset of ‘I ain’t got nothing to lose, might as well go up there and try and hit one’,” Jackson said.

That mindset carried more meaning to the entire team, including coach Todd Whitting, in taking back the Silver Glove trophy, considering the Cougars were slowly thinning the margin in the all-time series between the two programs. 

“That trophy, especially for somebody like me that’s been around the program for a long time, means a lot,” Whitting said. “I think there was a 14-year stretch where we didn’t win the Silver Glove, so it’s something that means a lot to the program and means a lot to the people who have been around the program for a long time.” 

That stretch not only created the current head-to-head gap the Cougars were trying to close in on, but contained moments they wish they got back. Most notably, they fell to the eventual national champion Owls in the 2003 Houston Super Regional at Reckling Park after sitting just one win away from their first trip to Omaha since 1967.

But as seasons progressed and some did not go the way they envisioned them, there was always solace in making the rivalry heat up once more, as the Cougars grabbed their 24th win in the last 34 meetings with Rice and 26th under Whitting in the series.

The win also salvaged a scare from junior right-hander Alex Solis, who for four innings had anchored the Owls to just one hit in relief of freshman right-hander Caden Cooper.

Upon acting on a swinging bunt by sophomore infielder Cole Green towards the left side of the infield in the bottom of the seventh, Solis took a fall that required him to be lifted in favor of freshman left-hander Max McCraray. 

With Houston missing its long relief option in Solis, McCraray and junior right-hander Richie Roman, who earned his second win of the season, took the baton and held the Owls hitless for the final 2 ⅓ innings, sealing Jackson’s homer as the difference.

While the Cougars, now 18-21 overall, avoided another significant losing streak as part of the ongoing nine-game road trip, another challenging leg of the trip awaits in Big 12 play. They’ll make the trip to Fort Worth to take on TCU at Lupton Stadium in a three-game series beginning Friday, April 24 at 6 p.m.