HOUSTON — Louisiana Tech scored twice in the top of the ninth and Ethan Bates earned his sixth save of the season as the Bulldogs won a classic gut-it-out game over Rice Friday, 6-4, in the first of three games scheduled in this Conference USA series at Reckling Park.
 
With one out in the top of the ninth and the game tied 4-4, three-hole hitter Dalton Davis pulled a 3-2 pitch over the third base bag to score Will Safford, who'd led off the inning on a hit by pitch. Philip Matulia, who'd walked with one out, then scored for a 6-4 lead when Jorge Corona's fly was misplayed by Owls leftfielder Guy Garibay Jr.
 
The two teams are scheduled to play a pair of seven-inning games starting at 3 p.m. Saturday before the Bulldogs bus back to Ruston.
 
LA Tech is all even at 15-15, 5-5 in C-USA. Rice is 14-16 and 5-5 in the league.
 
Landon Tomkins, 4-0, pitched two innings and got the win in relief of Jonathan Fincher. The loser was Owls senior righty Krishna Raj, 1-2, who the Bulldogs scored on in the ninth.
 
Attendance was announced at 2,029, an optimistic number for sure. Because of rain, the game started at 8:15, nearly two hours later than scheduled, but it was worth the wait for the approximately 500 fans, staff, players and coaches who stuck around for the 2:49 it took to play it on a blustery, chilly night.
 
Both starters pitched well enough to win. Fincher gave up three runs on six hits in six innings. When the Owls scored two in the second, it was the program's first runs off the senior lefty in three career starts against Rice. Until then, Fincher had pitched 16 scoreless innings—a nine-inning shutout two years ago, six scoreless innings last year, and a scoreless first.
 
Owls starter Parker Smith, 6-4, 230 and the reigning C-USA Pitcher of the Week for his 1-0 shutout at Florida Atlantic last Friday, gave up two earned runs in his 5.2 innings of work.
 
A mammoth home run by Tech centerfielder Brody Drost, 453 feet over the scoreboard in right on a 1-1 fastball, gave the Bulldogs the lead, 4-3, in the eighth, but Rice tied it in the bottom half on an opposite-field homer by left-handed hitting Aaron Smigelski against the righty reliever Tompkins.
 
But then came the offensive heroics for Tech in the top of the ninth.
 
Tech jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first. Bates and Matulia singled to start the game, Davis knocked in Bates with a sacrifice fly, Corona was hit by a pitch, and Drost walked on four pitches before Adarius Myers knocked a 3-2 pitch to right to score his roommate, Matulia.
 
Rice tied it in the second on a walk, triple and single.
 
Then the two teams traded homers. Pierce Gallo cleared the wall in left for Rice as the Owls took a 3-2 lead in the fourth, and hometown boy Matulia homered for Tech in the seventh to tie things at 3 before the big finish.