Houston, Tex. - After rallying for a game-tying run in the bottom of the ninth inning, University of Houston sophomore catcher Chris Snyder slugged a one-out double in the tenth to lift the Cougars past visiting Southern Miss by a score of 4-3 Sunday afternoon at Cougar Field. The victory was UH's fourth in a row and completed a three-game sweep of the Conference USA weekend series to put Houston in sole possession of first place in the league standings.

Southern Miss jumped out to a 2-0 lead with runs in each of the first two innings, but Houston scored a run in the second and tied the game in the bottom of the fifth when junior Chris Klosterman doubled and scored on a two-out single by senior Sean Allen.

The Golden Eagles then broke the deadlock with a run in the eighth. Dusty Haley was hit by a pitch, advanced to second on a walk and scored on a two-out single by Nathan Bowden. In the bottom of that frame Houston had a man in scoring position and Snyder had a chance to give the Cougars a lead, but a well hit ball to right field was caught at the base of the wall to end the inning.

After Houston pitchers got out of a jam in the top of the ninth the UH offense rallied to tie the game. Rightfielder Sam Mitchell led off with a walk, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Klosterman and then scored on Thanos Papavasiliou's third base hit of the day. Houston still had a chance to win the game that inning but continued a trend it had for the entire game by stranding two men on base. On the day the Cougars left a season-high 17 men on base.

In the Cougar tenth, junior designated hitter Josh Snook singled with one out and then scored the game-winning run from first base when the next batter, Snyder, doubled deep into the gap in right-center field. With its fourth win in as many games Houston improved to 10-16 overall and 3-0 in C-USA action. Southern Miss fell to 13-9 and 0-3. Houston completed the first weekend of C-USA games with the only perfect 3-0 record among the 10 league teams.

The Cougars will next face No. 1 ranked Rice at home on Wednesday, March 21, at 7:00 p.m. Game three of the Sterling Bank Silver Glove Series will be broadcast live around the world on the internet at tsrnsports.com.

Conference USA Baseball Linescore                       R       H       E
Southern Miss           110   000   010   0     --      3      10      2
Houston                 010   010   001   1     --      4        9     0

Charlie Rogers, Anthony Rawson (7), Stephen Castleman (7) and Rusty
McDaniels; Gene Flores, Nathan Mitchell (7), Nick Torina (8), Jared Grein (8),
Brian Henderson (9) and Chris Snyder. WP - Henderson (1-0). LP - Castleman
(2-2). Save - none. 2B - USM: McDaniels; UH: Snyder, Klosterman. 3B - none.
HR - none. Time - 3:07. Att - 624. Team Records - Southern Miss 13-9, 0-3;
Houston 10-16, 3-0.

Other C-USA Sunday C-USA Scores
Cincinnati 6 & 5, Louisville 3 & 3,
South Florida 9, Tulane 3,
UAB 4, Saint Louis 3,
Charlotte 6, Memphis 5.