United Athletic Conference

PLAYER OF THE WEEK Rice right fielder Austin Davis, a sophomore from Houston, Texas (Spring Branch Memorial HS), hit .500 (6-12), drove in eight runs, hit three home runs and scored seven times in a three-game sweep of Louisiana Tech last week. Davis hit a home run in each game to double his home runs on the season to six. He is now hitting .369 on the season, second only to teammate Vincent Sinisi (.433) in the WAC.

PITCHER OF THE WEEK San Jose State right-handed pitcher Mike Malott, a sophomore from San Jose, Calif. (Valley Christian HS), picked up two saves in two appearances over the weekend against Nevada. On Friday, he entered the game with runners on first and second with one out and retired the two batters he faced to preserve the 8-6 win. On Sunday, Malott pitched four innings of hitless ball and induced two double plays. For the week he pitched 4.2 innings, struck out four, allowed no hits and walked two batters.

OTHERS NOMINATED Other player of the week nominations included:
Joey Myers, Jr., OF, Fresno State - hit .625 (5-8) in a three-game sweep of Hawaii last week. He hit three home runs, drove in four runs and scored six times in the series.
Derek Honma, Sr., OF, Hawaii - was 8-for-13 (.615) in four games last week. Against Fresno State, he had at least two hits in all three games and was 3-for-4 in two of the games.
Ryan Adams, Sr., SS, San Jose State - hit .636 (7-11) in three games against Nevada. He added six RBI and drove in the winning run in both Fridays and Saturdays games.

Additional pitcher of the week nominations included:
Bob Runyon, Sr., Fresno State - pitched a complete game in a 6-2 win over Hawaii on Saturday. Runyon allowed eight hits, two runs (one earned) and one walk in recording the victory.
Philip Humber, Fr., Rice - threw seven innings in Sundays 13-1 win over Louisiana Tech. Humber allowed only two hits, one earned run and struck out nine batters in the game.

TOP THREE TEAMS SWEEP In the WACs final weekend of the regular season, the top three teams swept the bottom three teams in the standings. Rice won all three against Louisiana Tech to set a WAC record with 28 conference victories. San Jose State swept Nevada to go 5-1 against the Wolf Pack this year. Fresno State also improved to 5-1 versus Hawaii this season.

RICE HOSTS REGIONAL For the eighth straight year, Rice is playing in the NCAA Tournament. The Owls are hosting a regional beginning Friday, their second straight season as one of 16 hosts. Rice, the number one seed, will play No. 4 Harvard in the first game on Friday. Texas Tech and Washington will play in the second game that day. Earlier this year, Rice swept a three-game series from Harvard in Houston. The Owls are 1-0 versus Texas Tech and did not face Washington this season. The winner of the regional would advance to the Super Regionals and face the winner of the Baton Rouge Regional that includes LSU, Southern, Tulane and Louisiana-Lafayette. The Owls are looking for their third trip to the College World Series as the Owls made appearances in 1997 and 1998.

SPARTANS EARN BID San Jose State earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years. The Spartans are the number three seed in the Palo Alto Regional and will face No. 2 Long Beach State on Friday afternoon. Stanford is the number one seed and host and will play No. 4 Cal State Fullerton later that evening. San Jose State only met Stanford during the 2002 season, and the Spartans split the two games. The winner will face the winner of the Los Angeles Regional that includes USC, Cal State Northridge, Maine and Brigham Young. San Jose State last advanced to the College World Series in 2000.

STREAKING Louisiana Tech second baseman Brandon Haygood currently has the WACs longest hitting streak at 15 games. Haygood hit .355 (22-62) with nine RBI and eight runs during that span to finish his season. The longest streak of the year was by Fresno States Casey McGehee who hit safely in 31 games from March 15-May 18.

IN THE POLLS In this weeks polls, Rice is 2nd in the Baseball America poll, 2nd in the Baseball Weekly/ESPN poll and 2nd in the Collegiate Baseball poll. The Owls are also 2nd in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll. San Jose State is ranked 18th in Baseball America, 22nd in Collegiate Baseball, 20th by Baseball Weekly/ESPN and 18th in the NCBWA poll.

NON-CONFERENCE In non-conference games, the WAC is 94-72 (.566). Fresno State is 13-16 (.448), Hawaii is 11-14 (.440), Louisiana Tech is 14-14 (.500), Nevada is 15-12 (.556), Rice is 19-9 (.679) and San Jose State is 22-7 (.759).

BASEHITS Fresno State: head coach Bob Bennett finished his career as the seventh winningest coach in Division I with 1,302 victories ... the Bulldogs announced on Tuesday that Mike Batesole would take over the program next year ... Batesole was Cal State Northridges head coach from 1996-2002 and had a record of 255-156-1 ... Cal State Northridge won the WAC in 1996 as an affiliate member and was 52-18 on the season ... Hawaii: the Rainbows lost 18 of their last 20 games ... junior pitcher Chris George had all five conference wins for the Rainbows this year ... Hawaii was the only WAC team to not win a conference series this year (0-10) ... Louisiana Tech: the Bulldogs lost eight of their last 10 games ... head coach Jeff Richardson finished the season one win shy of 100 for his career ... Brandon Haygood finished the season with a 15-game hitting streak, the longest by a Bulldog this year ... Techs ERA of 4.70 is its lowest since 1993 ... the Bulldog pitching staff set a school record for most strikeouts with 452 and allowed only 48 home runs in 31 home games, the lowest since 1989 ... Lee Gwaltney struck out 21 Rice batters in his two appearances (15 innings) against the Owls ... Nevada: was 7-7 in the month of May ... Nevada led the WAC in home runs during May with 25, 11 more than the second best team (Fresno State) ... the Pack did not win 30 games for the first time in nine years ... senior Curtis Wickwire had 13 hits this season, eight of which were home runs ... Rice: has won six in a row after losing three of its previous five games ... the Owls have won 40 or more games for the eighth straight season ...the Owls are 10-4 against ranked teams this year ... Rice leads the WAC in hitting (.325) and ERA (2.86) ... Rice pitchers have struck out 508 batters in 525.1 innings ... in conference games only, the Owls hit .348 and had three of the top four hitters in the league led by freshman Vincent Sinisis .500 average (61-122) ... Rice was the only team in the WAC to hit over .300 (.348) and have a team ERA of less than 4.00 (2.79) in conference games ... the Owls have 55 stolen bases, 11 more than their total from last year ... Rice is the only team in the country ranked in the top 25 in batting, pitching and fielding ... Sinisi is the only WAC player with an overall batting average over .400 (.433), 64 points higher than the next best player in the WAC ... his average is currently the best ever by an Owl as current Houston Astro Lance Berkman set the record of .431 in 1997 ... Sinisi leads the WAC with 21 games with three or more hits ... San Jose State: the Spartans have won 19 of their last 22 games ... San Jose State had a WAC-best ERA of 2.72 and a team batting average of .333 during the month of May ... SJSUs 45 wins set a new school record along with their 637 hits and 460 runs ... San Jose State is the only team in the WAC undefeated in extra inning games (4-0) ... SJSU is third nationally in fielding percentage (.974) ... senior second baseman Gabe Lopez has the WACs best fielding percentage (.978) for any player with at least 100 assists (145-172-7).