Friday night’s TCU win forces elimination game

Barty, Ashleigh Garbine Muguruza Marin Cilic Feliciano Lopez

Gilles Lucie

Muller Safarova

Grigor

OMAHA, Neb.— Itwas a sterling start but a tarnished finish.

TCU broke through against the previously untouchable Florida pitching staff, earning a 9-2 win late Friday in the CollegeWorld Series. It setupa showdown late Saturday for the final spot in the CWS championship series.

Florida (49-19) had allowed one run in its previous three games, but has also struggled to score.

“Bottom line is, we need to score more,” Florida coachKevin O’Sullivan said. “I probably need to look at the lineup. I hate to make a change this late in the season but there’s some guys that are obviously not feeling great about themselves. Maybe I can take a little pressure off them by moving them down a little bit.”

Twoof the Gators top hitters are struggling. Lead-off hitter Ryan Larson is 0-for-20 since driving-in the winning run in an extrainning victory againstWake Forest in Game 1 of a Super Regional while third-place hitter JJ Schwarz is 1-for-12 in the CollegeWorld Series.

Friday was an uneven pitching effort for Florida’s Jackson Kowar who struck out TCU’s first five hitters and seven of the first eight.

“Our scouting report didn’t show how good his change-up was,” TCU’s Evan Skoug said. “He was punching us out with that.”

The Horned Frogs, though, quickly struck in the third inning as Ryan Merrill singled, and came home on Austen Wade’s double. Zach Humphreys’ double was the thirdstraight hit and gave TCU a 2-0 lead.

Kowar, a sophomore, finished sports

with a career-best 11 strikeouts, but allowed four earned runs on six hits in five innings. He suffered the first loss of his career after winning his first 15 decisions.

“It was mostly not executing the fastball,” Kowar said. “All the runs they scored were with two outs. You’ve got to get off the field in those situations.”

Mitchell Traver nearly matched Kowar, striking out four of his first six batters. His effort, too, fell off in the third. Mike Rivera drilled a home run to left — his third of the year and first since March 31 — and then after two walks, Dalton Guthrie hit double that was barely fair and barely short of a home run. Nick Horvath scored whileRyan Larsonwas thrown out at third, halting what could have been a bigger inning.

The Horned Frogs (50-17) regained the lead in the fourth on JoshWatson’s two-run triple with two outs. Center fielder Horvath initially stepped in, and as he tried to recover the ball bounced off his outstretched glove.

Florida relief pitcher Garrett Milchin left with an injury in the sixth. It was unclear initially what happened, but Milchin threw, spun around in obvious pain, and immediately walked off the field.

“I don’t know what happened,” O’Sullivan said. “The doctors will look at him; obviously he won’t be available [today].”