BATON ROUGE, La. — Sam Houston is set to play in the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional which will be hosted by nationally seeded LSU this weekend.
The third-seeded Bearkats (38-23) will play second-seeded Oregon State (39-18) at 7 p.m. Friday at Alex Box Stadium. Top-seeded LSU, which is the No. 5 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament, will face fourth-seeded Tulane (19-40) in the opening round.
This will be Sam Houston's 13th appearance in an NCAA Regional. The Bearkats earned an automatic berth after winning the Western Athletic Conference Tournament this past weekend at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Arizona.
This is the second time Sam Houston will be playing in the Baton Rouge Regional. The Bearkats finished third in 2013 with an opening round win over Louisiana but were eliminated following back-to-back losses to LSU and the Ragin Cajuns.
The last time Sam Houston made an NCAA Regional was in 2017 when the Kats topped Texas Tech twice in Lubbock to advance to the program's first-ever Super Regional in Tallahassee, Florida.
The second-seeded Bearkats had to win four consecutive elimination games with back-to-back doubleheaders on May 26 and May 27 in the WAC Tournament to advance to the regionals. Sam Houston's offense exploded for 72 runs in wins over fourth-seeded Abilene Christian, WAC regular season champion Grand Canyon and third-seeded Utah Valley.
After elimination the Antelopes with a 22-8 run-rule victory, the Kats had to beat the previously undefeated Wolverines twice to win the tournament. Sam Houston stayed alive with a 12-10 victory then pummeled Utah Valley 21-1 in the winner-take-all championship game.
