The ace of the Wildcats pitching staff, Nathan Bannister, left Friday’s game with an arm injury after retiring the first eight batters he faced. Rivas, who had gone 0 for 4 at the plate with three strikeouts as the starting left fielder, struck out Simpson swinging. With Kyle Lewis on second after drawing a walk and a Cesar Salazar sac bunt, Louis Boyd came up and roped a double down the left field line.
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Trey Cobb replaced him and pitched brilliantly.
OSU had a runner on second with only one out in the eighth, but Arizona pitcher Kevin Ginkel struck out the next two Cowboy batters to get out of the inning. Hatch, taken by the Chicago Cubs in the third round of the Major League Baseball draft, is 9-2 with a 1.89 ERA.
Oklahoma State pushed across the final run in the ninth on an RBI single by Andrew Rosa.
“You watch the College World Series when you’re a little kid and you’re not sure how you’ll feel when you’re out there”, Bettencourt said.
Game One of the national championship series is on Monday night with first pitch 5 p.m. Tucson time.
Only two leadoff hitters reached against Dalbec in seven frames, and he allowed multiple base-runners in just one inning. They added two runs in the seventh on a sacrifice fly and David Parrett’s ground-rule double. The two teams will play again Saturday with the victor moving onto the best-of-three championship series against either Coastal Carolina or Texas Christian.
On Monday, Oklahoma State overcame a gem from Bobby Dalbec to win a 1-0 pitchers’ duel behind Tyler Buffett. He exited after hitting a batter, allowing two walks and five hits – four for extra bases.
In 1989, when he won a school-record 18 games and Arizona was the Pac-10 champion, future MLB All-Star Scott Erickson pitched 172 innings.
Oklahoma State starter Thomas Hatch, who tossed a complete game shutout against UC-Santa Barbara in the Cowboys’ first game of the College World Series, only made it through two innings. The 42 victories are fifth-most in NCAA history.
“Jensen was going to have to win a ballgame in order for us to move on”, Walton said after Wednesday’s practice at Creighton University, just a few blocks from TD Ameritrade Park.
“I knew the offense would come back strong, just like yesterday”, Dalbec said. “We’ll bounce back”, he said.
· Jared Oliva’s sacrifice fly gave him six RBI at this year’s College World Series, the most for any player in the field through 13 games. However, it’s something that OSU could have an advantage in if Hatch can deliver a solid outing. It’s rare to see guys stretched out beyond one or two innings, and it’s even rarer to see a one-man relief show.
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“You kind of have to not think about it – as much as it sucks – that Banny came out of the game early”, Ming said. 467 in the NCAA Tournament, went 0 for 4. The Wildcats would tack on three more runs in the ninth making the score 9-2. The junior righty not only secured his team a Saturday night do-or-die rematch with TCU (8 p.m. ET on ESPN), he also gifted his visibly tired pitching teammates with a night off. Now his coach, Gary Gilmore, can be more aggressive with a staff that should, in theory, be ready to hit the reset button, especially crucial after using three pitchers on Thursday night. At that point, the Cowboys had allowed only six runs through seven NCAA Tournament games.
