Top seed Sam Houston St. knows road won’t be easy

SUGAR LAND — When it came down to the end of the regular season, Sam Houston State clinched the Southland Conference baseball championship on a walk-off victory in the final game.

The Bearkats captured their seventh regular-season title in nine years by a single game over Central Arkansas and Southeastern Louisiana.

But as good as Sam Houston State is, there is no clearcut favorite in the eightteam conference tournament that begins Wednesday at Constellation Field and concludes with the title game Saturday.

“This league is pretty even this year, and it was a grind to win the regular season title,” Bearkats coach Matt Deggs said. “In this league, there really is no benefit when it comes to the tournament. There’s no bye. Once you get to the tournament, it’s everybody 0-0.”

In its 5-4 victory over Northwestern State in the back end of a doubleheader to conclude the regular season, Sam Houston State wonon a Colton Cowser’s RBI single. Cowser, a freshman outfielder from Cypress Ranch, was named the Southland hitter of the year Monday.

The top-seeded Bearkats (31-23, 20-10) have won the conference tournament two of the last three years.

Their first game of the double-elimination tournament is 4 p.m. Wednesday against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. First-team all-conference righthander Hayden Wesneski, a junior from Cy-Fair, will start for Sam Houston State.

Central Arkansas (29-25, 19-11) made a late run to finish second, winning five of its final six games to catch Southeastern Louisiana in the standings.

In taking the third spot, the Lions (30-25, 19-11) showed that they can win away from home, winning road series against tournament qualifiers Incarnate Word, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Stephen F. Austin. The Lions are led by Southland pitcher of the year Corey Gaconi, who went 6-0 in conference play with a league-low 1.82 ERA and 63 strikeouts.

Incarnate Word, the fourth seed, qualified for the tournament for the first time. It led the league with a .311 batting average, and its eight selections on the allconference teams were the most of any school. Sam Houston State was next with seven selections.

The winner of the Southland tournament earns the league’s automatic bid, one of 31, to the 64-team NCAA Division I tournament.

Even with one of the nation’s toughest non-conference schedules, Deggs doesn’t want to depend on an at-large invitation to get into the NCAA Tournament.

“They’re putting more emphasis on conference winners, so that’s a plus,” Deggs said. “The best thing for us to do is go win this tournament.”