The Incarnate Word baseball team walks solemnly to the outfield after its season ended Saturday with a 7-3 loss to Sam Houston State. UIW finished 29-26 for its first winning record in six years.
Jack Rogers slammed two of Sam Houston State’s four home runs Saturday afternoon en route to a 7-3 victory over the University of the Incarnate Word at Sullivan Field.
It was the regular-season finale for both teams.
The Bearkats swept all three games of the series in San Antonio to deny the Cardinals what would have been their first trip to the Southland Conference baseball tournament.
What began as a promising season for UIW ended on a seven-game losing streak.
Andrew Fregia homered in the first inning for the Bearkats, who will be the top seed in the SLC tournament next week at Sugar Land.
Rogers added a homer in the third, followed by Hearn’s shot in the fourth. Rogers hit another one in the seventh.
Records
Sam Houston 38-18, 24-6
Incarnate Word 29-26 13-17
Notebook
Despite the late-season swoon, first-year coach Patrick Hallmark led UIW to its first winning record as an NCAA Division I program.
The 13 conference wins were also the most in the team’s five years in the SLC.
UIW had posted losing overall records each of the past four seasons during its transition to Division I.
This was the first season in the wake of the transition that UIW would have been allowed to play in the tournament.
The Cardinals’ last non-losing record came in 2013, in their final year in Division II, when they posted a 26-26 record.
Their last winning record came in 2012 when they finished 24-20.