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Top-seed Sam Houston State came into the Southland Conference baseball tournament knowing how dangerous the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders could be. After all, the eight-seed Islanders gave the Bearkats all they could handle in their three-game series earlier in the season, even taking the first game .
Then they beat them down 9-2 in the opening round of the conference tournament, leaving SHSU to fight its way through the loser's bracket to make it to Saturday's final. The Bearkats play an elimination game Thursday at 9 a.m. against McNeese State, which also lost Wednesday to UT-Arlington 6-2.
Corpus Christi and UTA will play in the winner's bracket at 4 p.m. Thursday.
The Islanders jumped on SHSU early with four runs in the first inning, sparked by a leadoff home run to left field from shortstop Eric Weiss. Bearkats third baseman Kevin Miller answered in the bottom half of the inning with an RBI single that drove in Colt Atwood. The score remained 4-1 until the sixth when Corpus Christi scored three more runs on one hit and an error on the Bearkats.
SHSU again responded with one run in the bottom half of the inning, but it wasn't nearly enough against the Islanders, who ranked in the middle of the league in hitting during the season aside from playing the Kats.
Brad Porras started the two-run ninth inning with a leadoff home run to put the explanation point on the upset.
For more on Sam Houston State athletics, visit SB Nation Houston.