Yesterday the Rice Owls defeated the Coogs 7-2 in the semifinal round of the Conference USA tournament, thus eliminating them from the tourney and effectively ending the season. After an absolutely dreadful 3-14 start to the year it may seem as though the ultimate 27-31 (13-11 in CUSA) finish is “okay”, but it’s the first time the Cougars have finished with a losing record since 2005.
Each of us here at S&H followed this team very closely, so we can each give our own unique perspective into the good and bad from this past UH baseball season:
SarCoog: I guess I’ll start it out on a pessimistic note: this was a bad baseball season and I’m not excited at all about the future of this team. Coming off of last year’s appearance in the College Station regional and 42-24 season record, there was obviously going to be a drop-off with all the departed hitters (Bryan Pounds, Jimmy Cesario, Ryan Lormand and Jake Stewart).
However the bigger disappointment for me was the pitching staff that returned everyone and was supposed to be at least somewhat improved on last year’s version. But the improvement was non-existent and there were cases of pitchers regressing: Wes Musick, John Touchton and Chase Dempsay being the most notable ones. Even one of the more positive stories of the year: Jared Ray, had an atrocious start before finishing strong. It’s easy to blame it on new pitching coach Russell Stockton, but there should have been enough experience on this staff to overcome this transition and at least slightly improve on the previous year.
Michael Goodnight at the Houston College Classic
There were a few bright spots from the ’09 season, most notably the rise of southpaw closer Donnie Joseph. While he was a solid reliever in his first couple of seasons, Joseph truly emerged as a dominant force in the ’09 season. He posted a 3-1 record, 2.16 ERA, 11 saves and 75 strikeouts in 50.0 innings pitched en route to being named 1st team All Conference USA. Coming in as the most hyped freshman prospect, Michael Goodnight delivered a solid first campaign with some ups and downs, but enough to earn a spot on the CUSA All-Freshman team. Blake Kelso and Caleb Ramsey both developed into good, consistent contact hitters this year. As mentioned earlier, Jared Ray had a good enough 2nd half of the year to be named 2nd team All Conference USA and had a streak of 31 straight scoreless innings in conference play. Finally David Murphy coming back and being an every day player a year after he was diagnosed with Leukemia is one of the more inspiring Cougar athlete stories in a long time.
I’m seriously concerned about the future of this program since they’re out of the postseason picture once again. Missing the tournament and finishing a little bit below .500 is acceptable at schools like UAB, Marshall, Memphis, UCF and any other mediocre team. It shouldn’t be acceptable at a program that proved it could make the NCAAs every year and be one of the top programs in the state of Texas. Right now I would say the UH program is behind Rice, Texas, Texas A&M, TCU, Baylor, Sam Houston State, Texas State and Dallas Baptist. It doesn’t help that coach Rayner Noble insists on playing a bizarre brand of small ball and routinely made in-game decisions that baffled everyone in attendance. With a new AD about to come into office, Noble is on a hot seat and deservedly so. We’ve been to the tournament only twice since 2003 and certainly are not trending upward by any stretch of the imagination.
Also, is Noble just now figuring out that he has to recruit power hitters? Seriously? He’s been doing this for 14 years and has 526 wins… yet just now realized he hasn’t recruited enough power. Well, I appreciate his honesty at least.
ElViento: SarCoog already covered a lot of the improvements and regressions of individual players, so I won’t rehash all of that too much. I will advise against an overreaction based on one year’s results. Did Sam Houston State and Dallas Baptist have better years than us this year? Sure. Are they better programs? Not at all. Last year, Houston easily swept a pair of games from SHSU, and watched DBU bow out from the College Station in two games, while taking the host Aggies to the wire. There should be plenty of talent returning next year for Houston, and I fully expect a return to the NCAAs.
Really, in every sport, people seem to want to have it both ways. We’re horrified when our men’s basketball team schedules cupcakes, wins 20 games and misses the NCAA tournament. But when a young baseball team puts together a killer schedule, and struggles to find itself early, we want to gnash our teeth about a sub-.500 finish.
It all comes down to expectations. Conference USA, for all it’s baseball prowess, is still not a rich enough conference to guarantee that anybody is going to be a national power year-in, and year-out. (Rice is the baseball exception, and while the next Wayne Graham may be waiting in the wings to take over at UH, there are fifty coaches out there who will make us miss Rayer Noble for every Wayne Graham.) The UH athletics department is certainly not well-funded enough to make that guarantee. Recruiting is getting better, as Noble seems to finally have realized the value in recruiting power hitters, and our pitchers seem to have universally improved in the second half under Stockton.
Be patient, Cougar baseball fans. Let us not forget that it was Rayner Noble who got us to the position of being a national power in the past, and he can do so again.
Bobb-O: I will be the one to say it. I didnt expect too much this year from the team. We simply lost too much.
I loved the schedule. It was exciting to play such difficult teams and watchteams that were at the top of the rankings. We lost ALOT of hitters. I expected alot more out of the staff than what they did, considering they were bringing back the entire staff. Rayner Noble has had his off year. A few more and he will have to go.
He made a “few” questionable calls in games this year that probably cost us one or two but the season can’t be attributed to him. For example K-State, it seems like the Coogs had a bajillion errors. Thats right a bajillion. Give the young team a few years to prove that they can play with the big boys. If Noble hasnt gotten results by the time the 2007 recruiting class graduates then it may be time to go.
Scott & Holman: Houston, Sports and All Things In Between 
