Arizona advances to regional final, eliminates No. 6 seed Miami with clutch hitting
Call them the Cardiac Cats. Call them the comeback kids. Call these Wildcats whatever you want, just don’t call them Monday because they’ll be playing for a spot in the Supers.
After beating Canisius earlier in the day, Arizona once again held off elimination by upsetting the national No. 6 seed Miami Hurricanes in their own regional Sunday night, 4-3. The win came in nail-bitting fashion as Arizona entered the top of the ninth trailing 3-2 and plated the tying and winning runs with two outs on the board.
Arizona out-hit the Hurricanes Sunday, 9-4, but Miami picked its spots early on. The Hurricanes homered on the first pitch they saw in the game, then added a two-run shot in the bottom of the sixth after a leadoff walk.
The Wildcats entered the eighth inning down 3-1 before a two-out solo shot from Tony Bullard, his fifth of the year, brought them within just one run.
In the ninth, Arizona opened the frame with back-to-back strikeouts—one swinging, one looking—to push all the way up against the brink of it. Then the Canes started to buckle.
Nik McClaughry reached first after a wild overthrow, then he advanced to second on a wild pitch from Miami’s Andrew Walters. Daniel Susac, facing a 1-2 count, took a pitch right to the shoulder and took first. Then Tanner O’Tremba brought both baserunners home with a double to right-center field.
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In the bottom of the ninth, Arizona gave up a leadoff single as the pressure to close out the hosts mounted. A wild pitch and then a sac-fly advanced the Miami runner over to third with all two outs still to work with.
Then Quinn Flanagan worked his magic.
He got the next Miami batter to strike out swinging, a six-pitch at-bat that worked the count full and brought Miami to its last out. The defense behind Flanagan gave him his second save of the day.
Trevor Long (6-3) earned the win for the Wildcats. Dawson Netz earned the start, striking out three batters and allowing just a single hit in four innings of work.
Arizona will face Ole Miss on Monday in the final of the Coral Gables Regional. It’ll need to beat the Rebels twice to advance.