Hi Corbett Field magic, present most of the season, was nowhere to be found on Saturday as Arizona’s season came to an end in a 7-0 loss to Dallas Baptist (45-14).
Dallas Baptist junior right-hander Jaron DeBerry had the Wildcats’ number from his opening pitch.
He held Arizona (36-23) to three hits through six innings, throwing a career-high 118 pitches.
“We knew they’re a very aggressive team,” DeBerry said.
“They like to get their swings off early, so early on if I can lay my breaking ball like I did that establishes everything and makes it a lot easier to go deep into the game whenever they have to think about five different pitches coming at them instead of just a couple.”
Arizona senior righty Cam Walty, suffered his first loss of the season in Hi Corbett.
Walty, coming off of two solid outing that helped secure the Pac-12 regular-season championship and the Pac-12 tournament championship, had a difficult time locating his pitches.
“Cam had the arsenal to really battle these guys well, he just didn’t have his good cutter today,” said Arizona coach Chip Hale.
Patriots sophomore designated hitter Tom Poole liked what he saw coming over the plate from Walty, hitting a two-run home-run in the third inning and another two-run home-run in the fifth that put Dallas Baptist up 6-0.
Poole headed into May with one home run. On Saturday, he hit his 11th and 12th home run of the season.
“Just looking for a pitch I can hit well, that’s pretty much as simple as it goes. I was overthinking it a little bit. Simplifying it really doing what I am good at and then those will come,” Poole said on his ability to see the ball and get his home run totals up.
Arizona had five total hits on Saturday, two of those from fifth-year junior second baseman Garen Caulfield.
Caulfield has a year of eligibility left and will decide if he will return next season after exploring his options at the MLB level.
When asked how he will look back on the season, Caulfield said, “I’m going to look back at this season as a major success, not only for the guys in the clubhouse, but for Chip and just the university as a whole.”
“We were doubted all year, and to make it as far as we did, we can walk away from Hi Corbett today saying that this year is successful. We’d like it to end different, and our goal is obviously to win a national championship here every year, but we can’t hang our heads because we were doubted and picked finished ninth in the Pac and our boys rallied.”
The season was full of exciting walk-offs (eight of them), two Pac-12 titles, a No. 13 national seed and the honor of hosting an NCAA Tournament Regional.
Looking toward next season, Hale said, “Old wins in college baseball, it really does, veterans win. We’re gonna have some veterans that are young next year, and I really am happy about our class coming in, too. We got some studs coming in.”
West Virginia moved on to the Tucson Regional final by defeating Grand Canyon 5-2 Saturday night.
The Mountaineers will play the winner of the Grand Canyon and Dallas Baptist elimination game Sunday at 6:00 p.m. for the Tucson Regional championship.
Grand Canyon and Dallas Baptist will play at noon. The winner of that game must beat West Virginia on Sunday night and Monday to advance to the Super Regionals.
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