OMAHA, Neb. — Zion Rose’s two-run single gave Louisville its first lead during a six-run eighth inning and the Cardinals knocked Arizona out of the Men’s College World Series with an 8-3 win Sunday.
Louisville’s 19th come-from-behind win of the season moved the Cardinals (41-23) to another elimination game Tuesday against Oregon State, which lost to Coastal Carolina on Sunday night.
Arizona (44-21) has lost six straight MCWS games over three appearances since 2016.
The Cardinals trailed 3-1 early and came up empty after having runners in scoring position in the third, fourth and fifth innings.
By then, coach Dan McDonnell had seen enough, and he gave his players a stern talking-to in the dugout with the hope of sparking a breakthrough.
“When I’m not happy,” he said, “they’re going to know.”
McDonnell added, “I had a lot of frustration in me just from when I was watching. I was waiting for the adjustment to happen. It wasn’t happening.”
When the runs did come, they came in bunches.
Lucas Moore’s sacrifice fly in the seventh made it a one-run game against Garrett Hicks (5-2), and then Arizona had an improbable meltdown with national Stopper of the Year Tony Pluta on the mound after the Cardinals’ first two batters reached in the eighth.
Tague Davis’ blooper loaded the bases, and then Rose punched a two-run single down the right-field line to put Louisville up 4-3. No. 9 batter Kamau Neighbors singled in another run to cap his 4-for-4 day.
Garret Pike got caught in a rundown between third and home and scored when Pluta dropped the ball trying to tag him at the plate. Neighbors came home on Alex Alicea’s squeeze bunt, and Matt Klein singled to left for the final run.
“Obviously, it’s not the way you want it to end,” Arizona coach Chip Hale said. “Really the only way you want it to end is to be the champion. Unfortunate. We played as hard as we could. We just didn’t play fundamentally sound baseball today.
“That’s the frustrating thing as a coach and as an instructor of baseball. It got really ugly at the end there. I take the blame for that. I have to have the team better prepared.”
Tucker Biven (4-0) pitched the last four innings for the Cardinals, working around two singles to hold Arizona scoreless in the ninth. Louisville is 26-0 when leading after eight innings and 203-5-1 since the start of 2019.
Adonys Guzman, who singled in the Wildcats’ first run in the first inning, hit his second homer of the NCAA tournament and ninth of the season to give his team a two-run lead in the third.
Freshman Smith Bailey gave Arizona another strong start. He went six innings for the fifth time in six starts, including three straight in the NCAA tournament. He allowed five earned runs over 18 postseason innings (2.50 ERA).
“I’m just going to take from this experience to be a leader for our team next year and try to bring us back and hopefully get a little bit of a different result,” Bailey said.
This was the teams’ second meeting of the season. In February, Louisville won 13-1 in Arlington, Texas, in a game shortened to eight innings by the run rule.
“Congratulate Arizona on a great year,” McDonnell said. “I know it hurts. It’s tough on them, but really one bad inning for them. They deserved to be here. They played their tail off in the postseason. They went on the road — tough on the road — and played really good here. These games, they’re one-inning, sometimes one-pitch, one-out type of games.”
Coastal Carolina 6, Oregon State 2
Coastal Carolina’s unbeaten Jacob Morrison was dominant into the eighth inning and the Chanticleers capitalized on Oregon State’s early mistakes to extend their win streak to 25 games with a 6-2 victory in the Men’s College World Series on Sunday night.
Morrison went 7 2/3 innings for his longest outing in over two months. The 6-foot-8, 245-pound right-hander retired 16 straight over the middle innings and left with two outs in the eighth after allowing five hits, walking none and striking out seven.
“For us to play like that on this stage, pretty darn remarkable,” coach Kevin Schnall said. “These guys were unbelievable tonight, and then Jacob Morrison — winner’s win.”
Coastal Carolina had to win five elimination games on its way to the 2016 national championship in its MCWS debut. The Sun Belt Conference team hadn’t been back to Omaha until this year, and the Chanticleers’ 2-0 start puts them in control of their bracket.
The Chanticleers (55-11) would advance to the best-of-three finals with another win Wednesday. Their opponent will be either Louisville or Oregon State (48-15-1), which meet in an elimination game Tuesday.
Morrison (12-0) had a 3-0 lead when he went to the mound for the bottom of the first. All three runs were unearned and the result of an unusual sequence of events.
Leadoff man Caden Bodine reached on star shortstop Aiva Arquette’s throwing error — only his sixth error of the season but second in two games — and went to second on a balk by Ethan Kleinschmit (8-5). The next batter, Sebastian Alexander, was down 0-2 in the count when he was called out for not being alert to the pitcher, as required, when the 20-second clock hit 8.
Blake Barthol walked and Walker Mitchell and Blagen Pado were hit by pitches, but Pado was called out for not trying to get out of the way. Colby Thorndyke then delivered a two-out, bases-clearing double into the right-center gap.
“We had a hit by pitch that didn’t go our way, which became two outs with bases loaded, and I came up in the same situation earlier in the season and didn’t get it done,” Thorndyke said. “I knew if I could get any runs in, and with Jacob on the mound, it would give our dugout confidence.”
Oregon State’s Easton Talt homered leading off the third to make it a two-run game, but the Chanticleers pulled away by scoring on an error and wild pitch in the fourth. It was 6-1 in the fifth when Thorndyke was hit by a pitch and scored from first on Dean Mihos’ double.
Morrison’s streak of 16 straight retired batters got rolling after Talt’s homer and consecutive flies to the warning track by Arquette and Gavin Turley.
“I don’t know if I was nervous the first time through the order,” Morrison said, “but it was awesome seeing long fly balls caught in right and left field. I settled in and was very confident after that.”
The Beavers went into the NCAA tournament seventh nationally in fielding (.982) with just 35 errors in 54 games. They’ve committed 10 errors in 10 games since, including five in their first two CWS games.
Two errors on the same play led them to blow a ninth-inning lead against Louisville in their MCWS opener Friday. They survived that, scoring in the bottom of the ninth for a 4-3 walk-off win.
Oregon State wouldn’t overcome its two errors, two hit batters, two wild pitches and six walks Sunday. Turley hit his 20th homer leading off the bottom of the ninth against Hayden Johnson, and the Chanticleers had to call on closer Ryan Lynch to get the last out when the Beavers put two runners on base. The Chanticleers improved to 42-0 when leading after six innings.
“Six walks, we can’t do that. Hit by pitch or two, again, that ain’t going to work,” Beavers coach Mitch Canham said. “Minimizing mistakes is important. I anticipate us going out and playing cleaner baseball Tuesday.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
