06/15/25 05:27:00
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06/15 17:26 CDT Louisville strikes for 6 runs in 8th to eliminate Arizona from
College World Series with an 8-3 win
Louisville strikes for 6 runs in 8th to eliminate Arizona from College World
Series with an 8-3 win
By ERIC OLSON
AP Sports Writer
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) --- 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
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 the loser of Sunday night's
Coastal Carolina-Oregon State matchup.
Arizona (44-21) has lost six straight CWS 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 came, 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's 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.
Garrett 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."
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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports
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