College World Series roundup: Arizona heading to CWS finals after 5-1 win over Cowboys

Roundup of today’s College World Series games:

Arizona 5, Oklahoma State 1

Bobby Dalbec pitched seven innings of four-hit ball, Zach Gibbons drove in three runs and Arizona beat Oklahoma State 5-1 on Saturday to advance to the College World Series finals.

The Wildcats, who forced a second Bracket 1 final by beating the Cowboys 9-3 on Friday, returned to the best-of-three finals in their first CWS appearance since winning the 2012 national championship. They are 6-0 in NCAA Tournament elimination games.

Arizona (48-22) will face TCU or Coastal Carolina beginning on Monday.

Dalbec (11-5), a fourth-round draft pick of the Boston Red Sox, allowed only two baserunners over his last four innings. He struck out six and is leading the NCAA Tournament with 33 in his five appearances.

The Wildcats chased Big 12 pitcher of the year Thomas Hatch (9-3) when their first two batters reached in the third inning. It was the shortest outing of the season for the Chicago Cubs’ third-round pick. He was charged with four runs and five hits.

Gibbons was 2 for 4 and drove in runs in the first, second and fourth innings. He went a combined 5 for 9 with five RBIs in the Friday and Saturday games. He is 9 for 19 (.473) with seven RBIs in five games in Omaha.

The Cowboys (43-22) threatened in the ninth against Kevin Ginkel, putting two runners on and one out. Arizona shortstop Louis Boyd made a diving stop on Jon Littell’s grounder and threw to first for the second out. Left-hander Alfonso Rivas came on to face pinch hitter Colin Simpson and struck him out to end the game.

Oklahoma State beat Arizona 1-0 on Monday, with Tyler Buffett holding the Wildcats to three hits. At that point, the Cowboys had allowed only six runs through seven NCAA Tournament games.

That untouchable pitching became very touchable the past two days. The Wildcats pounded out 14 hits Friday, and they had nine more Saturday. Hatch allowed four doubles after giving up one extra-base hit in his previous three starts. The attendance of 9,326 was the smallest since the CWS moved to TD Ameritrade Park in 2011.

Coastal Carolina 7, Texas Christian 5

Tyler Chadwick homered and doubled, Alex Cunningham pitched 6 1/3 solid innings, and surprising Coastal Carolina reached the College World Series finals with a 7-5 victory over TCU on Saturday night.

The Chanticleers (53-17) of the Big South Conference will play Arizona in a best-of-three series starting Monday, trying to win the national championship in their first appearance at the CWS.

Chadwick’s blast over the right-center wall opened the scoring, and the Chanticleers added two runs in the third and four in the fourth. They had only three baserunners over the last four innings, and TCU pulled within two runs with one out in the ninth. But Michael Landestoy hit into his third double play of the game to end it.

Alex Cunningham (10-4) scattered eight hits and allowed four runs before turning the game over to Bobby Holmes.

Jared Janczak (7-4), the first of four TCU pitchers, last three innings and took the loss for the Horned Frogs (49-18).

The Chanticleers from Conway, South Carolina, have been playing baseball since 1975 and are no strangers to the NCAA Tournament. They’ve been in it 15 times since 1991 and made the super regionals twice before this year.

Their path to their first CWS finals was adventurous.

In regionals, an 8-1 loss to host North Carolina State forced a second final, and the Chanticleers were down 5-3 in the top of the ninth of that game when rain suspended play with Coastal Carolina having one out and the bases loaded. The Chanticleers came back the next day and rallied for four runs to win 7-5.

Then it was on to a super regional at LSU, where they squandered a lead before Michael Paez’s tiebreaking single in the bottom of the ninth produced a walk-off victory in the clinching game.

In Omaha, Coastal Carolina lost to TCU in its second game, meaning the Chanticleers had to win three straight to go to the finals. The Chanticleers knocked off Texas Tech on Thursday and TCU on Friday before beating the Frogs again.