Starkville, Miss. – Cesar Salazar singled with two outs and the bases loaded to plate Kyle Lewis to give the Arizona Wildcats a 6-5 win over Mississippi State in 11 innings to capture the Starkville Super Regional and advance to the College World Series.
This will mark Arizona's 17th trip to the College World Series in Omaha.
The Cats trailed 5-1 heading into the eighth, and scored three in that inning to pull within one. Alfonso Rivas then singled to score Cody Ramer and tie the game at five. Two innings later, Salazar singled to win the game and send the Cats to Omaha.
Cameron Ming, who pitched two scoreless innings in relief, earned the win.
“I pride myself on knowing the right thing to say, but I'm speechless right now,” coach Jay Johnson said after the game. “This is the best moment of my life.”
Nathan Bannister, who went 2-0 in two starts in the Lafayette Regional in Arizona's opening week of postseason play, pitched into the seventh inning, working in and out of trouble. The senior right-hander tossed a 1-2-3 first inning, getting a pair of flyouts and a strikeout.
The Cats put a man on in the bottom half of the first, but a double play by Rivas ended the inning. In the second, the Bulldogs got to Bannister for the first time. Third baseman Gavin Collins led off the inning with a double and moved over to third on a groundout. Brent Rooker then plated the first run of the game on an RBI single, scoring Collins from third. Bannister got a strikeout and a groundout to end the second and keep it 1-0.
The Wildcats quickly changed that in the second thanks to Bobby Dalbec, Dalbec, who pitched 8 2/3 scoreless innings Friday night in Game 1 to earn the win, launched a solo home run to left with two outs in the inning to tie the game 1-1. It was Dalbec's seventh home run of the season and second of the postseason.
But Mississippi State answered back in each of the next two innings to build a lead. In the third, the Bulldogs took advantage of a pair of Arizona errors and scored when Collins lifted a sacrifice fly to left to score a run and make it 2-1. An inning later, Mississippi State added another run when Rooker led off the fourth with a solo shot of his own to left to make it 3-1.
The Cats put runners on the corners with two outs in the bottom half of the inning, but a hard liner from Jared Oliva was snared by Collins at third.
Arizona again threatened in the fifth after Bannister pitched a perfect top half. Louis Boyd led the inning off with a double and moved to third on a one-out single from Zach Gibbons. But the inning ended when Rivas hit into 4-6-3 double play.
Neither team scored in the sixth and Mississippi State made it 4-1 in the seventh when Jake Mangum doubled off left-hander Tyler Crawford with one out. The Bulldogs made it 5-1 in eighth when Rooker hit his second home run of the game with one out off freshman right-hander Cody Deason.
Arizona rallied in a big way in the bottom half of the inning to cut the deficit to one run. After back-to-back singles from Gibbons and Rivas, Ryan Aguilar hit a three-run home run to right field to make it 5-4. It was Aguilar's team-leading eighth home run of the season and put him over 50 RBI for the season, giving him 51.
The next two batters, JJ Matijevic and Dalbec, both singled, but Arizona couldn't get them in and went to the ninth trailing by a run.
