Arizona gets leg up in CWS finals opener
South Carolina bats are stifled
OMAHA — With all the runs Arizona has scored in the NCAA tournament, it’s sometime easy to forget the Wildcats can pitch a little as well.
Konner Wade threw a completegame six-hitter Sunday night and Robert Refsnyder homered, helping give the Wildcats a 5-1 victory against twotime defending champion South Carolina in the first game of the championship series in the College World Series. Game 2 of the best-of-three series is today (8, ET, ESPN2), and the Wildcats can win their first national title since 1986 with a victory. Game 3, if necessary, would be Tuesday.
Wade (11-3) has pitched three complete games in the postseason, including two in the CWS, and has given up five earned runs in 35 innings in the NCAA tournament. He struck out three Sunday and walked one. He threw 110 pitches, 73 for strikes.
“I can’t say enough about my defense tonight,” Wade said after the game. “You can pitch to contact with this defense behind you. In the past three starts, I’ve just had the same mentality: try to throw strikes and get ground balls.”
Refsnyder also made a sparkling defensive play in right field when he threw out Adam Matthews at third as Matthews tried to advance from first base on a single in the seventh inning.
That ended the last threat for USC (49-19). “Konner Wade was outstanding,” Gamecocks coach Ray Tanner said. “We were never able to do anything offensively.”
Tanner said after the game that his All-America left-hander, Michael Roth (9-1), would “likely” pitch the mustwin game today. Roth is coming off a two-hitter in a victory Thursday against Kent State, so he would be going on three days’ rest. Arizona will likely go with either James Farris (7-3) or Kurt Heyer (13-2), the nation’s victory leader. Both are righties.
“We’ve talked about one in a row for six weeks now,” Wildcats coach Andy Lopez said. “That’s all we’ve talked about. One in a row. Play good baseball tonight and show up tomorrow night and play good baseball tomorrow.
“We understand where we’re at. These guys understand who they’re playing. They understand it’s not a tournament somewhere in South Dakota.”
The Wildcats (47-17) are averaging 9.3 runs a game in the NCAA tournament and have won 10 games in a row.
Refsnyder continued his torrid tournament hitting when he drove a 2-2 pitch from Gamecocks starter Forrest Koumas into the South Carolina bullpen in right field to give the Wildcats a 2-0 first-inning lead. The homer scored Johnny Field, who had singled.
With USC’s rotation taxed because the Gamecocks had to play two elimination games Thursday and one Friday to reach the title series, Tanner called on right-hander Koumas (2-3) to start Game 1. Koumas had made 17 appearances this season but only three starts. In 25Z innings, he had allowed 27 hits with 28 strikeouts and 16 walks.
Koumas, who started the first game of the championship series last year against Florida, missed more than a month with a stress fracture in his elbow and had not pitched in the NCAAs.
He ran into trouble again in the third, starting when shortstop Joey Pankake committed an error on a leadoff grounder by Arizona’s Trent Gilbert. Joey Rickard and Alex Mejia then singled to account for one run.
Refsnyder was intentionally walked, loading the bases. Koumas was pulled in favor of right-hander Evan Beal. He induced a double-play grounder from Seth Mejias-Brean, limiting the damage.
The Wildcats got a second unearned run to make it 4-0 in the fifth. Field drew a one-out walk, took second on a wild pitch, reached third on an errant throw by catcher Grayson Greiner and scored on a single by Mejias-Brean.
“It was a good ballgame for us, and hopefully, we can get another one tomorrow,” said Lopez, who won his only national title 20 years ago at Pepperdine. “You’re thankful when a young guy (Wade) gets better as the season goes on. . . . He was marvelous.”