Box Score

SAN MARCOS – Texas State's Tanner Hill sent out a home run deep over the left field wall in the second inning against No. 11 Rice Tuesday night. Unfortunately for the Bobcats, that was the only highlight in a tough loss for Texas State, 14-1, to drop to 13-7 on the year.
 
Rice scored first in the second inning. Outfielder Michael Aquino led off the inning with a double and scored on another one from Kirby Taylor. After that, starting pitcher Chad Young forced two groundouts to limit Rice's scoring to just one run in the inning.
 
Hill wasted no time tying the game up in the bottom of the inning with a solo bomb over the left field fence in the exact same spot as his last homer against Air Force on Feb. 16. Rice, however, answered in the top of the third.
 
The Owls would eventually score four runs in the third inning. Rice benefitted from two hit batters, two walks, a two-base error and two singles in the inning to gain a 5-1 advantage.
 
From there, Rice added two runs each in the fourth and eighth innings and capped the night with a five-run ninth.
 
The Bobcats went deep into the bullpen in an effort to save arms for the weekend conference series against Western Kentucky. Texas State sent out eight pitchers with nobody throwing for longer than Young's 2.1 innings.
 
Cory Geisler was the highlight of the bunch, striking three out while giving up three hits and no runs in two innings of work. Andrew Boes also did well for himself with two strikeouts, no hits or runs against three batters to close out the eighth inning.
 
Matt Smith led the Texas State bats with two hits, including the first triple of his career on a long shot to right centerfield. Colby Targun and Hill were the other hits for Texas State as the Bobcats knocked four total hits to 16 strikeouts. Targun's hit, however, pushed his streak of games in which he reached base to 16.
 
Texas State will play its second week of Sun Belt Conference action this weekend at Western Kentucky with games at 6 p.m. Friday, 3 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.