And he came through, knocking a single through the right side, sending Arizona back to Omaha for the first time since 2012 with a 6-5 win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
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“We knew (Salazar) was a great hitter”, Arizona’s Zach Gibbons said. His misses were either off the plate or up, they weren’t anything we could get good barrel on.
The Wildcats charged onto the field for a dogpile and a celebration that seemed improbable just a few innings before. Even if MSU comes back and wins the next two to spoil Arizona’s party, head coach Jay Johnson and his staff deserve a ton of credit for the job they’ve done this season.
“I just”, Sexton said before composing himself. The first baseman was hitless in the two games until the at-bat.
Mississippi State (44-18-1) lost each game by one run.
The Bulldogs entered as super regional hosts, but were shut down by Bobby Dalbec in a shutout loss in game one and blew a late lead in game two.
That changed in a hurry when Ryan Rigby gave up back-to-back singles to start the bottom of the inning and Ryan Aguilar deposited a three-run home run to right field to make it 5-4.
Mississippi State’s leader in batting average, Jake Mangum, then stepped up with a chance to be the hero.
“I thought he was the difference in the ballgame”, coach John Cohen said of Dalbec. “But we wanted to get to Omaha”. BC pitched a particularly awful eighth inning, which saw a walk, a hit-by-pitch, another walk, another hit-by-pitch for a run, and then a Johnny Ruiz grand slam. An inning later, Watkins smashed a two-run shot over the left-center wall to put his club up, 8-3.
“I think that was a game changer”, Cohen said. “It just gave us that extra boost of confidence we needed to pull it out”. The Bulldogs were able to send the game into extras when Smith managed to coax a strikeout and groundout to end the inning.
MSU’s bats didn’t do Smith any favors, putting up goose eggs in the 10th and 11th and Arizona finally cashed in.
“I knew he was throwing a lot of sliders, so I was sitting on a slider”, Salazar said.
Cameron Ming, who pitched two scoreless innings in relief, earned the win.
With the 1-0 victory, Arizona will now try and close out Mississippi St. Saturday night in Game 2.
Arizona has won 12 of 13 games heading into next weekend’s College World Series. After Tyler Neslony hit a three-run homer to get the Red Raiders back into the game, ECU turned to freshman Matt Bridges, who tossed the final 2.2 innings with six strikeouts.
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Mississippi State’s last appearance in the College World Series was in 2013, when the Bulldogs finished as the national runner-up after losing in the championship series to UCLA.
