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The headlines
across the country put it a lot of ways: “Yes, Rice Can!”
and “Rice Guys Finish First!” and “Champions!”
But no matter how it was stated, the historic message was the
same: Rice University, which has never before won a national championship
in a team sport, is now the national champion in college baseball.
And under the guidance of head coach Wayne Graham, the Owls did
it in convincing fashion, clobbering worthy opponent Stanford
14–2 in the final game, the largest margin ever in a College
World Series title match.
The national title capped a remarkable season in which the Owls
posted a school-record 30-game winning streak, one of the longest
in NCAA history. For eight straight weeks Rice was ranked #1 in
at least one of the four national polls. For the seventh year
in a row, the Owls captured the Western Athletic Conference championship.
The Owls’ outstanding run through the regular season earned
Rice one of the NCAA’s coveted eight national seeds, ensuring
crucial home field advantage for the first two rounds of the playoffs.
But neither round was easy. At the regional, Rice survived a first-game
scare from McNeese State and held on to win 3–2 in 10 innings.
Rice then eliminated Wichita State in two games to advance to
the next stage.
At the super-regional, a best-of-three match-up against familiar
rival University of Houston, Rice fell 5–2 in the first
game. But the Owls calmly won the next two contests 10–2
and 5–2 to advance to the College World Series (CWS) in
Omaha for the second year in a row.
A key breakthrough for the Owls in 2003 was to win their opening
contest in Omaha. In each previous trip to the CWS (1997, 1999,
and 2002), Rice lost a close initial game to the eventual national
champion. But this time, Rice dispatched Southwest Missouri State
4–2 to stay in the winner’s bracket of the double-elimination
tournament. That victory set up a showdown with Texas, the defending
national champion and arguably Rice’s archrival over the
last two years.
