Virginia and Florida get off on the right foot
OMAHA— Kenny Towns hit a tiebreaking double in the eighth inning after Daniel Pinero stole second base and third base, and Virginia opened the College World Series with a 5-3 victory over Arkansas on Saturday.
The Cavaliers (40-22), the 2014 national runnersup, will play Monday against Florida and the Razorbacks (40-24) will play Miami in an elimination game. Arkansas tied the score, 3-3, inthe fifth inning on Andrew Benintendi’s home run, his 20th this season. Joe McCarthy of Virginia opened the scoring with a drive into the rightfield seats in the second inning.
Trey Killian (3-5) left with one out in the eighth after Pinero singled for his third hit. Zack Jackson replaced Killian and Pinero stole second base and third on consecutive pitches. Pinero scored when Towns drove a ball into the rightfield corner.
Ernie Clement had a runscoring single in the ninth inning. The Cavaliers scored all of their runs with two outs.
Virginia starter Connor Jones made it through six innings despite giving up six hits, walking two batters and hitting two.
Florida 15, Miami 3: The Gators (50-16) scored 11runs in the fourth inning to tie a CWS record and hand the Hurricanes (49-16) their most lopsided postseason loss.
The Gators turned a 2-1 deficit into a 10-run lead. They had nine hits against Andrew Suarez (9-2) and two relievers.
Florida sent 15 batters to the plate in the 40-minute inning, with Peter Alonso driving in three runs and Josh Tobias and JJ Schwartz driving in two apiece.
It was the most runs scored in an inning at the CWS since Stanford had an 11-run ninth against Florida State in 2008.
Logan Shore (10-6) scattered seven hits and struck out six batters in five innings.