Rice Owls Headed To College World Series

The Rice Owls won their Super Regional game against Texas A&M (6-5) at a sold-out game on campus last night. That's right, baby, we're headed to Omaha!

Although, one hopes that the Rowdy Owls will tighten their game between now and the first game of the College World Series; last night's difficult win over the Aggies yielded six errors for the Houston institution.

Seems that Rice coach Wayne Graham is a little conscious of those errors as well, the Houston Chronicle reports that he is not sparing the rod.

...the Rice Owls eliminated Texas from the NCAA baseball playoffs and still got punished by their coach.

Wayne Graham couldn't get those six errors out of his mind, so when practice resumed, he turned the thing into two days of work on fundamentals.

Fielding drills. Throwing drills. You name it. All of it was accompanied by Graham's trademark stare along with some, uh, words.

Graham is not well known for his pleasantries. He's the fowl-mouthed engine that keeps the team hustling and Reckling Park packed with fans.

The Owls' solid batting and excellent pitching should push the team into contention. After winning the series in 2003 and qualifying for three consecutive years, Wayne Graham's boys continue preparations to bring back another championship, and frankly they're due for one soon.

The College World Series begins June 14th. So far, the following teams have advanced to the tournament: Stanford, North Carolina, Florida State, Georgia, Miami (FL) and Rice. UC Irvine and LSU play their final game tonight at 8 p.m., as do Fresno State and Arizona State University.

Photo: Houston Chronicle