By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
Riding an emotional roller coaster this week, UTSA Roadrunners will take on the Rice Owls in a three-game American Conference baseball series starting Thursday at Reckling Park in Houston.
In facing the Owls (18-12, 3-3), Head Coach Pat Hallmark’s Roadrunners (20-9, 4-2) are coming off some highs and lows over last four days.
On Sunday, they clinched their 13th straight conference series victory in the American with an 8-7, 10-inning win at home over the East Carolina Pirates.
Caden Miller delivered the winning hit on a walk-off with a single through the right side.
On Tuesday, they built a lead that reached four runs in both the fifth and sixth innings at Incarnate Word, only to lose the non-conference encounter with their cross-town rivals, 13-11, on a walk-off home run in the ninth.
The Roadrunners will have no time to lament the loss of a game they were expected to win, because they’ll need to focus their full attention on the Owls, who have won three in a row and nine of their last 14.
Colin Robson is one of the hottest hitters for Rice coach David Pierce. He had two hits in a home victory over the UTRGV Vaqueros on Tuesday, and in his last four games, he has eight hits and eight RBIs.
Another player swinging the bat well is Garet Boehm, who connected on a three-run home run in a 5-2 victory over the FAU Owls on Saturday. In an 8-1 victory on Sunday, Boehm followed on Sunday with a grand slam.
As a result, Rice bounced back from a 6-2 loss to win the series. The Owls defeated the visiting UTRGV Vaqueros 6-4 on Tuesday.
The Owls played through a year of transition in 2025, as the program fired head coach Jose Cruz, Jr. after the first month and then hired Pierce, a former head coach at the University of Texas.
Pierce is 525-306 in his 15th season as a head coach. Previously, both Pierce and Hallmark worked together on the Rice coaching staff under Wayne Graham.
Hallmark is 226-153 in his ninth year as a head coach, including 160-105 in his seventh season at UTSA.
Records
Rice 18-12, 3-3
UTSA 20-9, 4-2
Coming up
UTSA at Rice, Thursday, 6:35 p.m.
UTSA at Rice, Friday, 6:35 p.m.
UTSA at Rice, Saturday, 1:05 p.m.
Notable
Rice leads the all-time series against UTSA, 30-25. But the Roadrunners have turned it around lately on their I-10 rival, winning the last five games and nine of the last 11.
UTSA was 4-0 against Rice in 2025. The Roadrunners swept the Owls in three games at San Antonio to close the regular-season and then won once in the conference tournament at Clearwater, Fla.