The Houston baseball program culminated its fall practices with a three-game intrasquad series over the weekend that stretched from Friday to Sunday.
The Cougars broke off into two teams, red and white, for the series.
Here is how the series went down:
Game one
On a breezy, cool Friday night, the red and white teams took the field for the first game of the series, and it was the white squad that made the first statement.
After being scoreless for the first few innings, junior infielder Steven Rivas hit a solo home run that put team white on the board first.
Freshman Samuel Tormos put the icing on the cake when he went up to bat, as he blasted the ball towards left field and it went over the fence for the three-run homer.
Junior left-handed pitcher Robert Gasser started for red and sophomore right-handed pitcher Blake Schultz started for white, and they both put in three scoreless innings.
Game two
After being shut out in the opening game of the three-game series, the red team came out with something to prove on Saturday evening.
Similar to game one, neither team managed to get much offense in early in the game until the fourth inning, when Houston baseball freshman infielder Skyler Trevino brought home two runs that gave the red team a 2-0 advantage it never surrendered.
Freshman right-handed pitcher Dravin Barber started the game for the red team and he threw three scoreless innings. He also had five strikeouts in that span.
Sophomore left-handed pitcher Cameron Prayer allowed just one hit in three innings in his start for team white.
Team red defeated team white won 2-0.
Game three
In the final game of the series, team white looked like they were going to jump out to a quick lead as they had the bases loaded with no outs in the top of the second, but sophomore pitcher Jaycob Deese was able to work himself out of the jam to strand the bases loaded.
Team red took the lead in the bottom of the second, as freshman infielder Skyler Trevino hit a bloop single to shallow center field with two outs to drive in two and give the red team a 2-0 lead.
Team white responded in the top of the third, as junior outfielder Steven Rivas hit a 417 foot moonshot over the right field foul pole to cut red’s lead to 2-1.
White tied up the game in the top of the fourth as sophomore catcher Leyton Pickney crossed the plate on a wild pitch.
The red team reclaimed the lead in the bottom of the fifth after sophomore infielder Brad Burckel tripled and then scored on a passed ball.
Down to their final three outs, sophomore infielder Ian McMillian led off the top of the sixth with a single. One batter later, red committed a throwing error on a routine ground ball which allowed McMillian to come all the way home and tie the game 3-3.
A few batters later, sophomore infielder Adam Becker came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded and proceeded to draw a walk to give team white the 4-3 lead.
Red came back in the bottom of the sixth as sophomore outfielder Brandon Uhse hit a sac fly to center field with the bases loaded to tie the game at 4.
Burckel was the hero for the red team as he came to the plate with runners on first and third ,and hit a line drive single to deep right field to walk it off, giving team red the 5-4 victory and 2-1 series win.