Super Regionals: Arizona sweeps, heads to CWS

Pat Valaika tripled in the fourth inning to help spark UCLA's attack.

Mark J. Terrill/AP

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Konner Wade tossed a six-hitter and Arizona earned its first trip to the College World Series since 2004 by beating St. John's 7-4 on Saturday to complete a two-game sweep.

A three-time national champion, Arizona (43-17) earned a share of the Pac-12 championship for the first time since 1993 and is headed back to Omaha for the 16th time after finishing off the Red Storm.

The Wildcats rallied from five runs down to win the first game of the super regional on Friday and jumped on St. John's (40-24) early in Game 2, scoring three runs in the first inning off Sean Hagan (8-3).

Wade (9-3) allowed four runs, and Bobby Brown had two RBIs to set off raucous celebration at Hi Corbett Field.

Arizona had a dramatic win in the series opener Friday, fighting back from the big deficit and down a run in the 10th inning to win 7-6 on Trent Gilbert's game-ending RBI single.

The Wildcats got out to the early lead this time, thanks to a mistake by Danny Bethea.

With two outs in the first inning, the St. John's catcher was called for interference when his glove got in the way of Robert Refsnyder's swing on a grounder up the middle. Instead of going off with the third out, St. John's had to stay out and watch Seth Mejias-Brean, Brown and Joseph Maggi each hit run-scoring singles that put Arizona up 3-0 before the Red Storm came to bat for the first time.

Mejia added a run-scoring single in the second inning after Joey Rickard worked a walk for the second straight at-bat, giving Wade a nice early cushion.

See the original post:

Super Regionals: Arizona sweeps, heads to CWS

Related Posts

Comments are closed.