Arizona baseball team's offense explodes late to salvage series finale at Wazzu

Staring a three-game sweep in the face, the Arizona Wildcats baseball team tallied seven runs in the seventh inning and five more in the eighth to beat Washington State 14-8 on Sunday in Pullman, Washington.

UA (18-15, 6-12 Pac-12) was down 4-1 entering the seventh. But Tommy Splaine put the Wildcats up for good with a two-run single to make it 6-4, and Tony Bullard followed with a two-run homer to make it 8-4. 

The Cougars scored twice in their half of the seventh to cut the lead to 8-6, but UA pounded out five more runs in the eighth, as Chase Davis had an RBI double and Bullard drove in two runs for the second straight inning, this time on a single.

Washington State (21-13, 7-10) won the series' first two games, 6-3 on Friday and 11-8 on Saturday.

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Kiko Romero went 2 for 2 with three walks and drove in four runs in the win, raising his batting average to .373. Emilio Corona was 2 for 4 and drove in runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings and is also hitting .373.

Bullard was 3 for 5 with four RBIs, while Mac Bingham and Nik McClaughry each notched three hits as UA totaled 18 as a team. All 13 runs UA scored in the final three innings came against the WSU bullpen.

Derek Drees (2-0) earned the win in relief, allowing one run in working the sixth inning. Starter Aiden May gave up three runs in five innings, striking out six.

Arizona next hosts No. 22-ranked Arizona State (25-10) at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Hi Corbett Field in a non-conference game. The Sun Devils managed a three-game sweep of the Wildcats from March 24-26 in Phoenix and are in first place in the Pac-12 with an 11-3 conference mark.