Sam Houston St. wins Southland

HUNTSVILLE — Sam Houston State beat Houston Baptist 5-4 on Saturday afternoon, using a walk-off, bases-loaded walk in the ninth inning from senior Zach Smith to put the finishing touches on an outright Southland Conference championship.

The Bearkats (37-19, 24-6) finished two games ahead of Southeastern Louisiana in the standings to earn their fourth regular-season league title in five seasons.

Louisiana Tech sweeps Rice

Rice fell to Louisiana Tech 10-5 in the teams’ Conference USA regularseason finale at Ruston, La., as Louisiana Tech swept the three-game set.

The Owls are the No. 4 seed, and Tech is the No. 5 seed, in the upcoming conference tournament that begins Wednesday in Hattiesburg, Miss.

UH drops AAC finale to Tulane

Houston rallied to overcome an early deficit, but fell 4-3 in its American Athletic Conference regular-season finale to Tulane at Darryl & Lori Schroeder Park.

The Cougars (33-22, 11-12) will be the No. 5 seed for at this week’s AAC tournament in Clearwater, Fla.

Baylor drops finale at Texas

Baylor fell 7-6 to Texas at Disch-Falk Field in Austin, coming just short of a sweep in the teams’ Big 12 series. In other Big 12 action: • No. 15 TCU completed a sweep of Kansas State with a 9-3 victory in Fort Worth to close out the regular season with a fivegame winning streak.

• West Virginia beat No. 5 Texas Tech 8-7 in Lubbock a 8-7 to avoid a three-game series sweep.

A&M eliminates UT in softball

Texas A&M beat Texas 9-3 and eliminated the Longhorns from the NCAA softball regional at Lafayette, La.

Texas A&M (39-19) moves on to face regional host Louisiana-Lafayette at 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Texas ended its season at 38-16. In other softball action: • Baylor stayed alive in the Eugene (Ore.) Regional with an 11-2 victory over Long Beach State. The Lady Bears will face Oregon in a rematch Sunday.

• In the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) Regional, Texas State was eliminated by California 4-3 after earlier defeating Samford 2-0.