SUGAR LAND, Texas _ The top-seeded Sam Houston State Bearkats jumped on the University of Central Arkansas Bears early in their Thursday winner's bracket matchup and ended up with a 12-2, seven-inning victory on the second day of the Southland Conference Baseball Tournament at Constellation Field.

    In the span of two innings, the Bearkats (39-18) used six hits and three UCA errors to take a quick 6-0 lead. SHSU scored one run in the first and five more in the second, knocking out UCA starter Ty Tice after just 1 1/3 innings. SHSU would add two more runs in the third and another in the fifth to put the game out of reach early.



    "We just didn't play catch tonight, that's the bottom line,' said UCA head coach Allen Gum. "Just fundamental playing catch, getting strike one... we got behind in counts. And we just booted some balls early and you can't do that with them. Their offense is dictated and predicated on that, getting the leadoff hitter on. We just didn't play good ball.

    "It was disappointing, because some of the errors were self-induced. We just made some critical mistakes. And they actually gave us a couple of breaks but we let them off the hook. And we've been playing so well, and then that was one of the worst games we've played in a long time.' 

    The fifth-seeded Bears, who shut out No. 4 Lamar 3-0 in their opening game on Wednesday night, got their first run against SHSU starter Riley Gossett in the second inning when senior second baseman Matt Anderson reached on a fielding error by SHSU second baseman Lance Miles and came around to score on senior Logan Preston's RBI single to left field.

    The Bears used six pitchers, with sophomore left hander Chris Durham and senior right hander Andrew Kemmerer the only ones that did not allow an SHSU run. Durham allowed one hit and recorded a strikeout in a scoreless fourth inning and Kemmerer blanked the Bearkats in the sixth, getting out of the inning with a strike out-throw out play.

    SHSU starter Riley Gossett (7-0) went six innings, allowing the one run, six hits and struck out five. The Bearkats used two relievers in the seventh after a brief rain delay as UCA put across another run on Tyler Langley's RBI double that scored pinch hitter Cody Davenport, who had walked.

    "It's just baseball,' Gum said. "You hope not to have a game like that this late in the year, but it's baseball. The ball didn't bounce our way. And give credit to them. Every time we made a mistake, they pounded on it. And that's why they're the best team in the league this year. That's why they've done what they've done. They'll probably be a (NCAA) regional team. And regional teams, you can't give them an extra out. We gave them an extra out and they took advantage of it.'

    The Bears finished with seven hits, two each from Montalvo and Preston, but the Bearkats tallied 15.

    "We just couldn't get anything going offensively,' said Gum. "And their pitcher was really good. He just threw strike after strike, downhill fastballs, got ahead in the count. They just constantly put pressure on us and we didn't handle it very well.'

    The Bearkats swept the regular-season series from the Bears in Huntsville, Texas, back in the first week of April. The 10-run loss was UCA's worst defeat in an SLC Tournament game and dropped its overall tournament mark to 11-7 and its record at Constellation Field to 8-4.

    The loss also broke a five-game winning streak for the Bears and knocked them into an elimination game against eighth-seeded Stephen F. Austin at noon Friday. UCA swept SFA in Conway in the opening SLC series of the season in early March. The Bearkats advance to face the winner of UCA-SFA at 7 p.m. Friday. The opposite side of the bracket features No. 2 seed Southeastern Louisiana, 2-0 in the tournament, against the winner of the McNeese-New Orleans game, which will be played at 9 a.m. Friday.