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COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Hundreds of headphone-wearing Texas A&M baseball fans let out wild cheers at the most inappropriate times Sunday night at Olsen Field.

Louie Belina, a College Station radio personality, channeled his inner Dave South and did his best describing the scene at the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City.

When the A&M softball team finished off a 1-0 victory over Florida in extra innings, Belina went wild on the radio, as did the fans at Olsen and probably everyone else in Aggieland.

A&M fans would have danced up and down Wellborn Road if the baseball team could have finished off Houston and advanced in the NCAA baseball tournament.

But all that energy got vaporized in the ninth when Jake Stewart drove in the game-winning run in the ninth inning as Houston captured a 4-3 win to stay alive in the NCAA regionals.

The A&M softball team will compete for the national title in the best-of-3 championship series starting today in Oklahoma City. The Aggies' baseball team has only one more chance to keep its postseason hopes alive, though.

Houston stormed through the loser's bracket and eliminated A&M at the College Station regional in 2003. The Cougars are in prime position to do it again today. A&M (45-17) and UH (42-23) will meet in a winner-take-all matchup at 6:30 p.m. at Olsen Field.

The winner will meet Rice in the NCAA super regionals.

"What more could you ask for [than] playing on Monday in your yard as the home team for a chance to win a championship?" A&M coach Rob Childress said.

What Houston did Sunday wasn't for the timid. The Cougars braved searing, 90-degree temperatures Sunday afternoon to beat Illinois-Chicago, 14-11, in an elimination game that went 11 innings and lasted 4 hours, 21 minutes.

Freshman right hander Jared Ray registered the final two outs against Illinois-Chicago. Then he turned around against A&M and threw his first complete game.

It took the Aggies six innings before they could even get somebody to third base.

"I knew if I came out there and they put up three or four runs the first couple of innings, we would just roll over and die," Ray said. "So I thought it was important to put up some zeros early."

A&M took a 3-2 lead in the top of the sixth. But Houston, the designated home team, tied the game in the bottom of the sixth with Ryan Lormand's RBI double.

The Aggies got the potential go-ahead run to third in the eighth and ninth. But Ray got out of both jams with relative ease as A&M couldn't get the ball out of the infield.

"The first couple of innings, we were swinging well but couldn't find the holes and couldn't catch the breaks," A&M left fielder Brodie Greene said. "We just didn't get the big hit at the right time."