Arizona fights back but falls short in College World Series finale

OMAHA, Neb. — The enduring image of the 2016 Arizona baseball season won’t be the puffy, red eyes of dazed catcher Cesar Salazar.

It won’t be the Wildcats hanging over the dugout railing, lingering there as if they didn’t want their season to end — or couldn’t believe it was over.

It won’t be UA coach Jay Johnson incredulously putting up the stop sign with the tying run a mere 90 feet from the plate.

No, the lasting visual of 2016 will be pitcher Bobby Dalbec squeezing the shoulder and rubbing the back of crestfallen friend and teammate Cody Ramer in the midst of the calamitous inning that dashed Arizona’s College World Series dream.

Camaraderie and heartbreak, encapsulated by a simple, human gesture.

“We’re just a team. We’re a brotherhood. We’re a family,” senior pitcher Nathan Bannister said after Arizona lost 4-3 to Coastal Carolina in the third and deciding game of the CWS championship series Thursday.

“This one stings, but we always have each other’s back.”

The Wildcats’ character shined through again during and after their most devastating loss of the season.

A team picked to finish ninth in the Pac-12 had the tying run on third base in the final inning of the final game of the college baseball season and just couldn’t bring him home. The Wildcats had fought back from a 4-0 deficit and never believed they would lose until they ran out of outs.

The players consoled one another in the dugout. They fought back tears in the clubhouse. They answered every question asked of them and didn’t point any fingers.

“Proud doesn’t begin to express my feelings for those guys in that locker room,” said Johnson, the first-year coach who led Arizona to its first postseason berth since 2012. “It’s special. I don’t want to let them go.

“I wanted that so badly for them. It’s not going away for a while. We’ll regroup, because we have each other. (But) this is going to stick, and it’s nothing personally. It’s for those guys. They’re a national championship-caliber team.”

Arizona had to settle for the runner-up trophy, which its seven seniors proudly but reluctantly accepted on a makeshift stage at TD Ameritrade Park. The UA lost by one run to Coastal Carolina in each of the last two games after winning the championship series opener 3-0. The difference between them over three games: one run.

“We left it all out on the field,” sophomore pitcher Cameron Ming said. “Baseball happens. Coast Carolina’s a good team. They capitalized on some mistakes that we made. They came out on top. I’m not upset at how we played. I don’t think anybody should (be).”

Coastal Carolina won its first College World Series championship. Arizona was seeking its fifth. The Wildcats had won six consecutive games this postseason when facing elimination, twice fighting through losers brackets to get to this point.

“It’s legendary,” Dalbec said. “Nobody picked us to do anything. Especially in Coach Johnson’s first year, it’s incredible for him to be able to lead us to that. And the senior leadership was unlike any other.”

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About the only thing more unexpected than Arizona’s postseason run was the sequence of events that led to its conclusion.

Ramer, a senior second baseman who had made only two errors in the past two-plus months, committed two on one fateful play in the sixth inning.

Dalbec and Coastal Carolina’s Andrew Beckwith had dueled to a 0-0 draw through five innings. Dalbec walked David Parrett to lead off the top of the sixth. After a sacrifice bunt, Michael Paez also walked. Dalbec struck out Connor Owings, but the runners advanced to second and third on a wild pitch.

Zach Remillard hit a grounder up the middle. Ramer couldn’t handle it near the second base bag, allowing Parrett to score. Ramer then tried to get Paez at third and threw the ball away. Two errors. Two runs.

“He’s probably our best defender,” Bannister said. “It just happened. That’s just baseball.”

Despite Dalbec’s pitch count nearing 100, two left-handed hitters coming up and Ming, a lefty, ready in the bullpen, Johnson left Dalbec in the game. He hung an 0-2 breaking ball to G.K. Young, who launched a two-run homer to right to make it 4-0.

After a single by Tyler Chadwick, Johnson came to the mound to take out Dalbec. As he waited for Ming to arrive, Dalbec comforted Ramer. ESPN’s cameras captured the moment, and it was shared countless times through social media.

“I know how it feels,” Dalbec said. “I was just trying to pick him up and not make him feel like he’s the only person out there.”

Ramer’s teammates did their part. Arizona halved its deficit in the bottom half of the inning on Jared Oliva’s two-out, two-RBI single.

With the score still 4-2 entering the bottom of the ninth, Louis Boyd drew a one-out walk. Ramer followed with a single, his third hit of the game, putting runners on first and third.

After Zach Gibbons’ sacrifice fly scored Boyd to make it 4-3, Ryan Aguilar sliced a double into the left field corner. Johnson, who also coaches third base, desperately wanted to send Ramer. But CCU’s Anthony Marks played the ball perfectly and threw a strike to Paez, the cutoff man. Ramer would have been out by “a hundred feet,” Johnson said.

“Trust me,” he added, “nobody wants to send a runner with two outs more than I do. I can’t believe the guy made the play. It was the play of the year in college baseball.”

Arizona still had runners on second and third with sophomore catcher Ryan Haug facing reliever Alex Cunningham. Haug had entered the game in the seventh inning after Salazar got hurt.

Haug worked the count to 3-2, but Cunningham struck him out with a high fastball. The Chanticleers raced out of their dugout. The Wildcats dejectedly gathered in theirs. They came that close.

“The season was a good accomplishment,” Boyd said. “But no one came here to lose. We came here to win. Everyone wishes we had another chance.”