The Owls (45-13) broke a 4-4 tie in the seventh with back-to-back RBI singles by Comerota and Diego Seastrunk. Comerota then scored from third on a groundout by John Hale.
Reliever Bobby Bell (1-0) pitched 3 2/3 innings and allowed no runs on two hits and a walk, striking out two.
Cole Green (3-7) pitched one inning and allowed two runs on two hits and a walk to take the loss.
Rice, which beat Texas two out of three games in the regular season, will play host to a super regional next weekend. Texas ended its season at 39-22.
Rice scored in the second inning on a bizarre pop-up by Chad Mozingo. Texas third baseman Preston Clark fell and injured his knee trying to catch the ball, which dropped in front of him for a single. Comerota scored from third. Clark lay on the field with an injured knee for several minutes before returning to play, then left the game after the inning.
One out later, Gayhart’s single up the middle drove in Mozingo for a 2-0 Rice lead.
The Owls added a run in the third when Comerota squeezed Aaron Luna home with a bunt down the first-base line.
Kyle Russell’s three-run homer tied the game in the third. It was Russell’s fourth home run of the tournament and 19th of the season. He increased his collegiate record for career homers, which he set with one in a game against St. John’s earlier in the day, at 57.
Gayhart had a run-scoring single to give Rice the lead at 4-3 in the sixth. But Texas scored a run with the help of two Rice errors on the same batted ball in the bottom of the inning. Kyle Lusson reached base on a fielding error that sent Travis Tucker to third. He scored on a throwing error by right fielder Mozingo to tie the game at 4.
Rice had a season-high five errors in the game.
Texas 4, St. John’s 3
HOUSTON - Austin Wood pitched 8 2/3 strong innings and Russell hit his third home run of the tournament as Texas rallied for a win over St. John’s in the losers bracket of the NCAA regional.
Texas (39-21) picked up its 3,000th win with the victory, joining Fordham as the only school with at least 3,000 wins.
St. John’s (42-16), which had beaten Texas 2-1 in the first round of the tournament Friday, was eliminated.
Wood (7-3) allowed three runs on eight hits and a walk and struck out three. He had two outs in the ninth when the Red Storm mounted a rally.
Matt Tosoni (6-2) took the loss. He pitched 5 1/3 innings and allowed two runs on seven hits and a walk, striking out two.
COLLEGE STATION REGIONAL
Houston 4, Texas A&M 3
COLLEGE STATION - Houston’s Jake Stewart busted open a tie game in the bottom of the ninth inning as the third-seeded Cougars defeated top-seeded Texas A&M at Olsen Field.
The teams will play a regional title game at 6:30 p.m. today to decide who will face Rice in a super regional next weekend.
Houston’s Austin Goolsby led the way early with a two-run home run against A&M starter Clayton Ehlert. Houston starter Jared Ray (4-2) allowed five hits and three runs in a complete-game victory.
Houston (42-23) had played a four-and-a-half-hour, 11-inning elimination game earlier in the day against Illinois-Chicago, for the right to face then-unbeaten A&M (45-17) Sunday night.
Caleb Ramsey drew a one-out walk in the ninth against A&M reliever Travis Starling, and advanced to second on Blake Kelso’s two-out single.
Stewart then calmly grounded a single up the middle and scored Ramsey, setting off a celebration at first for the exhausted Cougars.
