The offense that carried the Arizona baseball team to game three of the NCAA Super Regionals vanished Sunday night as the Wildcats (42-19) fell three runs shy of a trip to the College World Series.
Arizona’s offense returned to a form similar to the one it showed during the middle of the season when the team posted a record of 3-10.
After the opening two games of the series in which the Wildcats scored 16 runs on 17 hits, Arizona stranded 11 runners on the night while pushing only two across in a 4-2 series-ending loss to the Hurricanes.
Sunday’s contest had a familiar feeling to it one team found itself in a first-inning hole. Unfortunately for Arizona-who opened game two with a 4-0 lead-it was Miami who took an early 3-0 advantage Sunday.
The Hurricanes jumped all over Wildcat starter Eric Berger (8-4) as Miami’s first three hitters all reached base. The lefty surrendered a single, double and bases-clearing home run by first baseman Yonder Alonso before settling in and retiring the next three batters to stop the early bleeding.
Through the rest of the night Berger proved difficult to tough allowing only three more hits and no other earned runs through his remaining 6 2/3 innings of work. The only other run by Miami came from an RBI ground out by third baseman Mark Sobolewski following an error by Arizona center fielder T.J. Steele.
After exiting in the eight, Wildcat relievers Ryan Perry and Jason Stoffel held the Hurricanes to four runs leaving the possibility open for an Arizona comeback.
But runs were hard to come by for the Wildcats’ offense despite creating numerous opportunities.
In all-but two innings, Arizona found itself with runners in scoring position and was unable to push them across.
The Wildcats best opportunity came in the eight inning when pinch-hitter Dillon Baird was hit by a pitch to load the bases with two outs.
However left fielder Raphael Valenzuela hit a short chopper to the left side and was thrown out at first to dowse the rally with no damage done.
Again in the ninth, second baseman Colt Sedbrook worked his way on base with no outs then to second with two outs. But again Arizona failed to drive him in as first baseman C.J. Ziegler grounded out to the shortstop to end the Wildcat’s championship hopes.