The Cougars turned in a record season in 2013, beating LSU on the road in a Regional before falling to Texas in the Super Regional. | File photo/The Cougar
In 2014, the Cougars made their first Super Regional appearance since 2003 and had one of their best seasons in recent memory.
At an NCAA Regional in Baton Rouge, the Cougars battled the Louisiana State University Tigers in an epic series to advance on to the Super Regional stage.
In the first of the two games against the Tigers, Houston was down 4-0 in the eighth inning, but they rallied back to tie the game and force extra innings.
The Cougars eventually came out with a 5-4 victory, as Kyle Survance had an RBI-single with two outs in the 11th inning to bring in the winning run.
The Cougars faced the Tigers in their following matchup for a ‘winner-take-all’ game to advance to the Super Regionals.
Houston suffered an early set-back as LSU scored two runs on three hits off Cougar starter Andrew Lantrip. However, Houston overcame the deficit with 12 unanswered runs as they pulled away with a blowout victory.
The Cougars rallied back and kept their season alive to advance to the NCAA Super Regional for the first time since 2003. However, they faced a tough matchup with the No.9 seeded University of Texas.
Houston came into the Super Regional with one of their best records in program history of 48-16, while Texas entered with a 41-19 record, coming off their Regional Championship where they defeated Rice and Texas A&M University.
In their first game of the series, Texas got on the board early as they scored two runs in the first inning and one in the fourth.
The pressure was put on Houston to respond quickly, but they were not be able to capitalize on late opportunities and ultimately fell to Texas, 4-2.
Houston would have to defeat Texas the following two games to advance to the NCAA College World series, but were shutout in the second game of the series, and their season ended at the hands of the Longhorns.
Houston played its last five weeks on the road that season, resulting in a 12-5 record.
The season saw many highlights, including winning a conference tournament and a Regional Championship title.
Despite the season ending earlier than the team would have hoped, the Cougars still put up a successful and impressive campaign.
