Ivan Melendez hits two massive home runs as Texas completes the sweep of Rice

Texas outscored Rice 36-3 over the weekend.

The opening weekend of 2022 could not have gone any better for No. 1 Texas.

The Longhorns dominated the Rice Owls 14-2 on Sunday to complete the three-game sweep. Texas outscored Rice by a total of 36-3 on the series.

Tanner Witt picked up the win in his first career start. Witt battled through some traffic most of the day but limited the Owls to just one run over five innings. He struck out his fourth Owl of the day with two runners on to keep the Texas lead at 2-1 in the fourth.

The Texas offense exploded after Witt’s big strikeout. Trey Faltine led off the bottom half of the fourth with a laser over the left field wall. Four batters later Ivan Melendez sent a three-run bomb over the monster to extend Texas’ lead to 9-1.

The “Hispanic Titanic” would add another three-run homer two innings later as the Horns cruised to a 14-2 victory.

Key stats:

  • SP Tanner Witt: 5.0 IP, five strikeouts and one earned run allowed.
  • 1B Ivan Melendez: 2-4, six RBI and two home runs
  • LF Eric Kennedy: 2-3, four runs scored
  • SS Trey Faltine: 1-4, home run and two RBI

Up next for Texas is a road trip to Texas A&M Corpus-Christi for two mid-week games against the Islanders.

Texas vs Rice Prediction, Game Preview

Texas vs Rice prediction and game preview. Saturday, September 18

Texas vs Rice prediction and game preview.


Texas vs Rice Broadcast

Date: Saturday, September 18
Game Time: 8:00 ET
Venue: DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, Austin, TX
Network: Longhorn Network
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Texas (1-1) vs Rice (0-2) Game Preview


Why Rice Will Win

Rice hasn’t been able to get the offense going, and there hasn’t been much fun in losses to Arkansas and Houston, but it really is a decent team that should be far more dangerous as the season goes on.

It also helps to be catching Texas before the Big 12 season starts.

Yeah, the Longhorns will be fired up after getting whacked by Arkansas, but the game exposed a slew of issues. The run defense struggled to come up with a big stop, the offense was inconsistent, and Rice somehow has to run the ball and and come up with third down stops to take advantage of both issues.

The pass rush hasn’t been bad, and the pieces are there to start running better and do more to control the clock. Generate pressure, don’t turn the ball over, hope Texas presses and makes mistakes – Rice has to do that, but …

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Why Texas Will Win

Rice hasn’t had a lick of luck so far offensively.

The ground attack is supposed to be a factor after years of trying to put it all together under head coach Mike Bloomgren, QB Luke McCaffrey threw three picks in last week’s 44-7 loss to Houston, and there isn’t enough happening to move the chains.

Worse yet, the defense isn’t getting off the field. Arkansas and Houston combined to convert 46% of their third down tries, the D isn’t generating enough takeaways to make up for the problems, and the special teams are screwing up, too.

Rice just isn’t tight enough to put together the perfect performance needed to pull this off.

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What’s Going To Happen

No, Texas, there’s no need to panic quite yet.

The Arkansas game was a disaster defensively, and it showed how far there is to go to get from good to elite, but there’s enough talent to roll though this and go into the Big 12 season with some momentum.

The quarterback juggling of Casey Thompson and Hudson Card will get all of the attention, but the defense is the real story. It needs to pitch a good game after getting ripped through by the Hogs, and it will.

Rice will continue to have problems moving the ball, it won’t do enough on third downs, and Texas will start to look the part again with ease.

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Texas vs Rice Prediction, Line

Texas 41, Rice 10
Line: Texas -25.5, o/u: 52.5
ATS Confidence out of 5: 3

Must See Rating: 2

5: Steve is proud of you
1: Ordinary Joe

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