Longtime Rice head coach Wayne Graham says junior right-handed pitcher Austin Kubitza is a devout humanitarian. Stanford would disagree.

Coaches always say that playing the best often brings out the best in position players and pitchers alike. That certainly was the case with the 6-foot-5, 225-pound Kubitza on opening weekend; he twirled an absolute gem against the Cardinal, a team that features arguably the nation's sexiest arm in senior right-hander Mark Appel, who turned down the Pittsburgh Pirates as the eighth overall pick in the major-league draft last summer.

"He's older and bigger, and he's up to about 225 pounds right now with that tall frame of his," Rice coach Wayne Graham said about Kubitza. "He's been through the mill, and he actually pitched well enough in the NCAA Regional last year to beat Arkansas. He looked pretty good out there."

Rice RHP Austin Kubitza Puts on a Show in His First Start
With approximately 30-40 major-league scouts in attendance to see the two right-handers duke it out, Kubitza created some buzz in the first inning against the Cardinal when he touched 92 with his fastball. It's not so much that Kubitza doesn't have the potential to throw at that high of a velocity, but reports throughout fall workouts had Kubitza between 86-88, and sometimes getting up to 89.

Just a couple of weeks ago, 92 seemed like a pipe dream, but from the Owls' standpoint, there's a perfectly logical reason for that dip in velocity.