Sam Houston State's unprecedented season led the Bearkats all the way to the championship round of the Houston Regional in the 2012 NCAA baseball tournament, but ended in a 5-1 decision to the Arkansas Razorbacks on Sunday night at Reckling Park.
"It was a great season for us. Our kids played hard all year. (I'm) very proud of them," SHSU head coach David Pierce told The Huntsville Item after the game. "The unfortunate thing is once you get to the postseason, if you don't win the national championship, you lose the last game. We're very proud of what we've done, very proud of the kids. Today just didn't work out for us, especially defensively."
The Kats had just eliminated host of the regional site Rice earlier in the day, it's just that there wasn't quite enough to get even with the Razorbacks, whose comeback win against SHSU in the opening round of the regional put the Bearkats in the loser's bracket, fighting to keep their season alive.
SHSU exhausted all options at starting pitcher by the time it reached that championship matchup with Arkansas. Michael Oros had helped lead the Kats to the 4-1 victory against Rice earlier in the day, while ace pitcher Caleb Smith and No. 2 Justin Jackson had put in work earlier in the weekend.
The Bearkats had to play a mistake-free game to have a chance against second-seed Arkansas, and it was far from that for the Southland Conference regular season champions. Due to several errors in the early going, Sam Houston fell behind and could never dig its way out of the hole.
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