TUCSON, Ariz. — Houston did not leave the desert with a sweep. It left with something more complicated: a series win, a missed chance, and another reminder that this team has learned how to fight even when the scoreboard gets sideways early.

After taking the first two games of the weekend, the Cougars fell 6-5 to Arizona on Sunday afternoon at Hi Corbett Field, a finale decided by one swing in the eighth inning after Houston had already authored one of its better comeback frames of the season.

Arizona jumped Houston early, scoring two runs in the second and two more in the third to build a 4-0 lead. For five innings, the Cougars looked stuck. Then the sixth inning arrived, and Houston’s lineup finally started playing with the kind of pressure that won it the weekend.

The inning began to turn when Houston loaded the bases and forced Arizona into traffic. Anthony Savattere singled home Tyler Cox to break the shutout. Xavier Perez followed with a bases-loaded walk. Carsten Sabathia III lifted a sacrifice fly to make it a one-run game.

Then Blake Fields delivered the swing Houston needed.The freshman punched a two-run single into shallow right, scoring Savattere and Perez and giving the Cougars a 5-4 lead. For a moment, Houston had flipped the afternoon. It was the kind of inning that shows growth: patient at-bats, contact with runners on, and a freshman stepping into a leverage moment without blinking.But Arizona had one more answer.

Maddox Mihalakis tied it in the seventh with an RBI double, and Joe Forbes delivered the decisive blow in the eighth, launching a solo home run off freshman Caleb Kimble to put the Wildcats back in front for good.

Kimble took the loss, but the line does not tell the full story. He threw the final two innings, allowed only two hits, and recorded his 21st strikeout of the season. For a freshman, those are the innings that matter later. The ones that sting now become part of the development file.

Patrick Morris closed it for Arizona, throwing four innings of two-hit baseball and keeping Houston quiet after the sixth-inning surge.Still, Houston’s weekend was not undone by Sunday. Tre Broussard stayed hot, going 2-for-4 with a run and a stolen base while extending his career-best hitting streak to 10 games. Cox reached base for the 14th straight game. Fields recorded his fifth multi-RBI game of the season.

That is the takeaway: Houston lost the finale, but the Cougars did not fold. They won the series. They built another big inning. They showed offensive fight on the road.

Now they come home for the final stretch.

Houston hosts Rice at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the final game of the Silver Glove Series, then closes the regular season against Arizona State with games Thursday, Friday and Saturday. All four games will stream on ESPN+.The sweep slipped away in Tucson. The bigger message did not.Houston still has fight left.