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Tom Waddill
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Tom Waddill
No better time
Pitching, hitting finally come together as Bearkats win third straight Southland Conference tournament title
Talk about everything coming together.
When Bearkat pitcher Ryan Tepera struck out Texas State’s Cody Gambill for the final out of Saturday’s Southland Conference championship game, Sam Houston State put the finishing touches on a conference tournament in which they finally had all the pieces finally fit into place.
This season, that wasn’t always the case.
Earlier in the season, the Bearkats’ offense was clicking on all cylinders after opening SLC play with wins in five of its first six games, sweeping Texas-Arlington and winning a series with Texas State in San Marcos. In the first two SLC series, Sam Houston averaged more than eight runs and 13 hits.
But then the starting pitching started to take its lumps and as a result, the Bearkats lost five of their next six conference games, getting swept at home by Texas-San Antonio and losing a series against Northwestern State.
At the midpoint of conference play, the Bearkats had started five pitchers with four of them having earned run averages of more than 8.00.
“We felt like we had real good ammunition out on the mound,” SHSU head coach Mark Johnson said late Saturday night. “We knew the guys were young, but we thought they were going to be good. I think in our first 18 wins, 14 of them we had to come from behind. We just gave up so many runs.”
After the starters found their groove and kept SHSU in games, the Bearkats seemed like a team that couldn’t be beaten. For a while they weren’t as they rattled off 10 straight victories.
With the season winding down toward the conference tournament, the offense started to lag while the pitchers maintained their solid performances.
“When the pitchers started going, we fell into a slump,” Johnson said. “We just could not get the bats going. So it was kind of peculiar in that regard.”
It’s not the typical way a team would prefer to enter the postseason, especially in a league where teams don’t often receive at-large bids to the NCAA regionals and have to rely on winning the tournament just to get in.
Then at a time when they desperately needed to, the Bearkats put everything together at the SLC tournament in Corpus Christi, culminating Saturday with an emphatic 7-1 victory over Texas State, a team that led the league in hitting and boasted one of the conference’s top pitching staffs.
The Bearkats’ pitching was impressive and their offense was explosive all tournament long.
Sam Houston State was consistent from top to bottom in the three previous tournament games leading up Saturday’s championship.
It was Sam Houston’s hitting and pitching performances against Texas State, a team that is expected to receive an at-large bid because of its 41 wins and key victories over Rice, Texas A&M; and Baylor, that showed what kind of team the Bearkats can be when everything works cohesively.
Bearkats sophomore pitcher Matt Shelton followed up his performance against Texas-San Antonio in the second round, in which he struck out four, allowed no walks, no hits and no runs in 3 2/3 innings, with a brilliant effort Saturday. Shelton entered the game — on one day’s rest — in the top of the fourth inning and humbled the Bobcats’ lineup. Shelton struck out eight and walked none in 6 2/3 innings. Texas State wasn’t able to get a hit off Shelton until the eighth inning. Shelton was so dominant that when he left the game, even Texas State fans couldn’t help but stand and applaud.
“It was pretty frustrating,” Texas State third baseman Lance Loftin said. “When you go up against good pitching, it’s definitely hard to score as many runs. We’ve been hitting the ball well as a team. We’re an offensive team. When we have the bats going, it’s hard to stop. They just put a guy out there that had the stuff to stop us. It was extremely frustrating.”
It wasn’t just the pitching that shined. The Bearkats’ bats went to town and collected 14 hits on the day. Sophomore Braeden Riley, who broke the Sam Houston State record for most hits in a season Friday night against Southeastern Louisiana, had another stellar game, going 4-for-5 with two RBIs. Riley now leads the nation with 108 hits.
When the Bearkats can get going like they were in the tournament, there’s no telling how well they can do in the regionals.
“The guys came out ready to play,” Johnson said. “We improved as a team. I like it when we’re strong during the stretch run. I was disappointed we weren’t stronger in the stretch run, but we’re getting ready to play in the (NCAA) tournament, so I like them a lot now.”
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Time to crank it up
Sam Houston State head coach Willie Fritz knew coming into the season that he was going to have his hands full turning around the Bearkats’ football program.
The rest of the coaches in the Southland Conference apparently agree.
Coming off a 5-6 season, a fifth-place finish in league play and the loss of 15 starters, Sam Houston State has been tabbed to finish seventh in the SLC preseason coaches’ poll, which was announced Wednesday during the Southland Conference Football Media Day at the L’Auberge du Lac Resort. -
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Like the Major League All-Star Game on Tuesday night in Anaheim, Calif., pitchers dominated the Triple-A All-Star Game on Wednesday in Allentown, Pa.
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Almost there
After years of toiling in the minor leagues, Dustin Martin can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Rising through the ranks of the minor league system all the way from Rookie League, the former Sam Houston outfielder is playing some of his best baseball these days and will play in Wednesday’s Triple-A All-Star Game in Allentown Pa., which will be televised at 6 p.m. on the MLB Network. -
Gallant shining again in Cape Cod League
Maybe, just maybe, on the mound closing games is where Dallas Gallant needs to be if he’s going to make a name for himself.
For the second summer in a row, the Sam Houston State pitcher has performed marvelously when he finishes games for the Hyannis Harbor Hawks, a member of the distinguished Cape Cod Baseball League. -
Bearkats enjoy banner year in classroom
With the release of grade point averages for the more than 400 Bearkats participating in varsity sports, plus the announcement by the Southland Conference office of the annual Commissioner’s Academic Honor Roll, the 2009-10 season goes in the books as another banner academic year for Sam Houston State University.
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Kelly ready for NCAA golf regional
When Sam Houston’s Scott Kelly tees off Thursday in the NCAA South Central Regional men’s golf tournament, his goal will be simple. He wants to become the first Bearkat golfer to earn a spot in the national tournament.
“As an at-large entry, it’s difficult to advance but it’s not out of the question,” Kelly said. “I’m going into the tournament with high expectations and will give it my best shot.” -
Dreaming big
His mind has been working overtime. Huntsville senior Quenntin Tucker has spent the past two weeks preparing for the Class 4A Region III track meet.
Tucker practices the discus by day, then dreams about it at night. Physically and mentally, he’s ready for the big meet.
“I had a dream about this,” Tucker said last week during a short break from practice. “In the dream I finished second in our region, then I finished second at state.
“I woke up that morning smiling.” -
Same old story
The Bearkats must’ve felt as if they had a little bit of déjà vu.
For the second straight Saturday, the Bearkats used a monster inning to climb out of a huge hole only to see it slip away.
This time, it was Stephen F. Austin, which rallied for five runs in the final two innings and held off Sam Houston for a 14-13 win. -
UCA has Bearkat softball team on ropes
The Bearkats saw the light dim on their Southland Conference tournament aspirations Saturday afternoon.
Desperately in need of a series win to gain ground in the chase for the sixth and final seed, the Sam Houston State softball team dropped both games of a doubleheader to Central Arkansas. - More SHSU Sports Headlines
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