OMAHA, Neb. — The eighth inning was like an albatross for Arizona in its two games at the College World Series at Charles Schwab Field, and the Wildcats are heading home because of the breakdowns in losses to Coastal Carolina and Louisville.
Arizona was 36-0 when leading after the seventh inning before the College World Series. The Wildcats went 0-2 in Omaha because of the eighth-inning blues.
They allowed Coastal Carolina to score four times in Friday’s 7-4 loss and Louisville to put across six runs in Sunday’s 8-3 defeat in front of 23,647 at Charles Schwab Field.
A couple of errors by two of Arizona’s most reliable players — Mason White and Tony Pluta — prolonged Louisville’s rally in the eighth inning. The Cardinals did most of the damage, however, with six hits — all singles, some of the bloop variety — while sending nine players to the plate.
“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. It doesn’t mean we didn’t have a great season. These kids played until the end. They did everything they could. I’m really proud of them. I’m proud of their families for putting up with me as their surrogate father for this season. Nothing but good things for the Wildcats in the future.”
Louisville (41-22) had 17 hits, 16 of them singles, in a 13-1 win over Arizona in eight innings at Arlington, Texas, in the third game of the season. The Cardinals had 13 hits, 12 of them singles, in Sunday’s victory.
They will play the loser of Sunday night’s Coastal Carolina-Oregon State game on Tuesday at 11 a.m.
Arizona ends its season with a 44-21 record. The program has lost six straight games in the College World Series (last two against Coastal Carolina in the 2016 best-of-three championship series and the first two games in 2021 and this weekend).
The Wildcats made the College World Series for the first time under Hale and captivated Southern Arizona with their runs through the Big 12 tournament, Eugene (Ore.) Regional and Chapel Hill (N.C.) Super Regional.
“The last month, being on the road (five straight weeks), I think we’ve been home for 24 hours to 36 hours, but I wouldn’t change it for the world,” Arizona senior second baseman Garen Caulfield said. “That’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball this last month. I’m super grateful for it.”
Louisville did not make things fun for the Wildcats in the eighth inning because of the defensive miscues and the dreaded bloop hit down the right-field line that also did them in against Coastal Carolina on Friday.
A bloop double close to the foul line in right field sparked the Chanticleers’ rally with two outs Friday, turning a 4-3 deficit into a 7-4 lead in the bottom of the eighth.
Pluta, the NCBWA Stopper of the Year, entered Sunday’s game after Jake Munroe reached on the throwing error by White and Eddie King Jr. followed with a single off reliever Garrett Hicks.
After a softly hit single to right-center field by Tague Davis loaded the bases, Zion Rose hit a bloop single to right field that landed fair near the line. That scored Munroe and King to put Louisville ahead 4-3 with still no outs.
Garret Pike reached on a fielder’s choice with Davis caught in a rundown between third base and home.
Following an RBI single by Kamau Neighbors, Pike also became stuck in a rundown between third base and home, but this time, Pluta dropped the ball on the tag, allowing Pike to score to make it 6-3.
Alex Alicea successfully executed a suicide squeeze bunt, forcing in Neighbors.
The last run occurred when Lucas Moore singled, stole second without an attempt to get him out and then scored on Matt Klein’s single.
“I congratulate Arizona on a great year,” Louisville coach Dan 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.”
Caulfield, one of the senior captains on the team, said he told his double-play partner White to “keep your head up.”
“Some stuff spirals and we put guys like Tony in tough spots,” Caulfield said. “You could feel the momentum right there when the bases were loaded and everything.”
Pluta was charged with four runs (one earned). He had not allowed a run since April 1, when Arizona lost at Grand Canyon 11-5.
The obvious positive in the game for Arizona was freshman right-handed starter Smith Bailey with a solid performance in his first College World Series experience at a young age.
Bailey was relieved by Hicks with Arizona leading 3-1 with no outs in the bottom of the seventh after Pike hit a double and Neighbors reached on a bunt single.
Bailey walked to the dugout, facing a standing ovation from Arizona’s crowd.
He threw 92 pitches in six innings with seven hits and two runs allowed. He struck out four and walked two.
“Felt the same as every other outing because I do everything the same,” Bailey said. “I tried to execute my pitches and keep my composure with any hits or anything that happened that didn’t go our way.”
Hicks got Alicea to pop out in foul territory before Moore hit a sacrifice fly to center field that scored Pike and cut the lead to 3-2.
The last batter, Klein, grounded out to White, who was positioned perfectly on the shift directly behind second base.
Arizona still had the opportunity to win with a 3-2 lead and Pluta, the nation’s top reliever, entering in the eighth to save the game
But the Wildcats’ “uncharacteristic” play, as Hale put, that plagued them during the game, spelled doom in the eighth. The mistakes included Maddox Mihalakis trying to tag from second to third on a fly out to left field that ended Arizona’s sixth.
“We just did a lot of things that were uncharacteristic of us during this run,” Hale said. “People ask all the time, you were struggling a little bit in the middle of the year, and we played a lot like this. We made a lot of base-running mistakes. We didn’t execute on bunt plays. Twice, they (Louisville) bunted the ball, we didn’t get an out, a run-down. There were so many things.
“It just slowly slipped away. You could see it slipping away. Unfortunately, doing everything you can to try to keep the guys positive and keep them with it, but you could see at certain points that there were guys who were starting to get down with their own disappointments, let that kind of cloud what was going on in the game.”
Arizona immediately looked Sunday like it was in bounce-back mode after Friday’s loss to Coastal Carolina.
Aaron Walton and White ignited a first-inning rally by each getting hit by a pitch with one out.
Adonys Guzman followed with a single to left field that scored Walton. White was caught between second and third on the play for the second out.
Mihalakis then lined a single to right field that moved Guzman to third.
Caulfield’s single to right field plated Guzman to give Arizona a 2-0 lead against freshman left-handed starter Ethan Eberle.
Louisville got to Bailey in the second inning after Bailey retired the side in the first.
Munroe and King led off with singles before Davis lined out to right field, which allowed Munroe to move to third base.
White prevented a prolonged rally by snagging a hard-hit grounder up the middle at shortstop. He flipped the ball to Caulfield at second base, getting King out but Munroe scored to cut the lead to 2-1.
Arizona got its two-run lead back in the top of the third on Guzman’s home run to left field, a no-doubter with two outs and on a 2-2 count.
Guzman batted .406 (13 of 32) in the NCAA tournament.
Another stellar defensive play by Arizona, a diving catch by Easton Breyfogle in left field off a hit by Klein, prevented a run in the bottom of the third. Alicea was on second base after reaching on a fielder’s choice and stealing second base. He would have easily scored if the ball had landed for a hit.
Arizona chased Eberle in the top of the fourth after Andrew Cain was hit by a pitch and Tommy Splaine got his second hit of the game, a single to center field, with one out. After Eberle struck out Breyfogle, another lefty, Wyatt Danilowicz, entered. Danilowicz struck out Brendan Summerhill to end the inning.
Louisville left two runners on base in the fourth and fifth innings, failing to cash in against Bailey.
Bailey battled back with three straight outs in the fifth inning after Neighbors reached on an infield single and Alicea executed a bunt single.
“I’m just going to take from this experience to be a leader for our team next year, try to bring us back next year and hopefully get a little bit of a different result,” Bailey said.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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