Editor’s note: For more than six decades, the UA has been college baseball royalty, making 17 College World Series appearances and winning four national championships. The Star is re-living each of the team’s trips to Omaha.
2016: Furious rally falls short in CWS championship game
What went down: Arizona was rallying from a four-run deficit and had the tying run at third base with two out in the final inning of the final game of the College World Series before Coastal Carolina struck out the Wildcats’ Ryan Haug on a 3-2 fastball to win the title with a 4-3 victory.
Arizona opened the tournament with a 5-1 win over Miami (Fla.), then lost 1-0 to Oklahoma State two days later. Facing elimination, Arizona beat UC Santa Barbara 3-0 and Oklahoma State 9-3 and 3-1, setting up the best-of three series against Coastal Carolina for the championship. The Wildcats won the first game 3-0, lost 5-4 in Game 2 and — after thunderstorms forced a one-day delay — lost by a run in the winner-take-all final. The 2012 season was Jay Johnson’s first as the Wildcats’ coach. He took over for the retiring Andy Lopez the previous summer.
Five Wildcats — first baseman Ryan Aguilar, second baseball Cody Ramer, outfielders Zach Gibbons and Jared Oliva and pitcher JC Cloney — made the all-tournament team. Coastal Carolina pitcher Andrew Beckwith was named the tournament’s most outstanding player.
Coastal Carolina catcher David Parrett charges past Arizona’s Ryan Haug to join the celebration after Haug struck out.
From the archives: The Star’s Michael Lev wrote that the Wildcats’ unexpected run to the CWS final was one of a handful of surprising things about the season. He wrote:
About the only thing more unexpected than Arizona’s postseason run was the sequence of events that led to its conclusion. (Cody) Ramer, a second baseman who had made only two errors in the past two-plus months, committed two on one fateful play in the sixth inning. … 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 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 made 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 (Michael) 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.”
He said it: Arizona made its CWS run despite being picked to finish ninth in the 11-team Pac-12.
“It’s legendary,” UA slugger Bobby Dalbec said after the loss. “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 do that. And the senior leadership was unlike any other.”
Arizona’s Cody Ramer (13) is tagged out at home plate by Coastal Carolina catcher David Parrett (12) in the third inning in Game 3 of the NCAA College World Series baseball finals in Omaha, Neb., Thursday, June 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
After Omaha: Dalbec started the title game on the mound, pitching 5º innings and allowing two earned runs on six hits while striking out two and walking three. It would be his final game on the mound. The Boston Red Sox drafted Dalbec with the fourth-round pick in the 2012 MLB draft. In four minor-league seasons, Dalbec — a third baseman — has hit .261 with 79 runs and 256 RBIs. MLB.com ranks him as Boston’s third-best prospect heading into the 2020 season. Gibbons and Ramer have both since retired from pro baseball — as have Beckwith and Paez, two of Coastal Carolina’s CWS stars. The ex-Chanticleers both called it quits this spring.
The big number: 1.25. Arizona finished the College World Series with a 1.25 team ERA. Unearned runs dogged the Wildcats in the championship game. All four of Coastal Carolina’s came via UA miscues.
