College Baseball World Series : Stanford Eliminates Miami; Arizona St. Wins

When the ball came off Jeff Saenger’s bat with one out in the ninth, it looked like extra innings for Stanford and Miami.

“There’s the double play,” Stanford Coach Mark Marquess thought. It looked as if the Cardinal had blown its chances with runners on first and second in a 1-1 ballgame. “Now we’ve got to go out there and hold them again,” he thought.

Doug Robbins, who had been at second, broke for third when the ball was hit, but he was baffled by what he saw.

They were waving him in.

Behind him, Miami second baseman Jose Trujillo had fielded the ball, then flipped it toward the shortstop covering second. But his toss was off--way off--and rolled into left field.

It was Stanford’s ballgame.

Robbins scored on the error, and the Cardinal, the defending champions, avoided being eliminated with a 2-1 victory in front of 12,461 fans at Rosenblatt Stadium.

It had been a finely played game, but it ended with a mistake.

“I’ll take it,” Marquess said.

The victory sends Stanford (43-23) against Cal State Fullerton Thursday. Fullerton can advance to Saturday’s championship game with a victory.

Stanford, which lost to Fullerton Monday, 5-3, after committing six errors, would have to beat Fullerton twice to have a chance to defend its title Saturday.

“We still have a shot,” Marquess said. “We’re still alive.”

Miami took a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning when John Viera led off with a homer. But Stanford came back in the bottom of the inning, also on a leadoff solo home run, this one by Paul Carey, who was the star of last year’s Series but was just 1 for 9 in this one before he homered.

In the seventh, Miami came back to load the bases on a single, an error and a walk.

Steve Chitren, the Stanford stopper who hadn’t allowed a run in his past five appearances, had relieved starter Stan Spencer with two out and two runners on, and walked the first batter he faced to load the bases.

Up came the next batter, none other than Viera, who had homered in his last at-bat.

Chitren struck him out looking at a slider.

The drama wasn’t over.

In the bottom of the inning, with a runner at first, Carey, too, would have another chance.

Carey lifted a drive toward left field, and it floated back and back. Mike Fiore, the Miami left fielder, went back, too, back to the wall where he leaped, making the catch as he crashed into the wall just inside the foul pole.

He came down in pain, with a gash on his left forearm and the ball in his glove.

He had saved the winning run, but only for then.

“That was a real tough one,” Miami Coach Ron Fraser said. His team was eliminated, finishing with a 52-14-1 record.

The last ball that was hit, he said, was just what Miami had hoped for, a double-play ball.

But Trujillo’s flip went awry.

“He took it and gave it a side toss,” Fraser said. “It was just one of those things. I told him if he hadn’t made the plays he did all year we wouldn’t have been here anyway, but it was tough to lose it like that.”

Arizona State 10, Florida 1--Rusty Kilgo, starting for the second time in the tournament, earned his second victory and saved the top-seeded Sun Devils from elimination.

Kilgo (12-2), a junior left-hander who was used solely as a reliever during the regular season, pitched a six-hitter, giving up one run, a homer by Allen Rutledge.

Arizona State (58-12) was playing without catcher Tim Spehr, who was suspended by Coach Jim Brock for disciplinary reasons. Brock would not elaborate, and said it was not certain whether Spehr, whose 20 home runs lead the team, would return for today’s game against Wichita State, which is undefeated after two games.

A victory over Arizona State would send the Shockers to the title game Saturday. Should Arizona State win, the teams would meet again Friday for the right to play for the championship.