LAFAYETTE, La. — After entering the postgame interview room Monday afternoon, Jay Johnson was asked to make an opening statement about his team’s 6-3 victory over Louisiana-Lafayette. The normally loquacious Arizona coach didn’t have much to say beyond these two words:
“Nathan Bannister.”
The senior right-hander had just helped the Wildcats win a second consecutive elimination game in the NCAA’s Lafayette Regional with a heroic performance. Three days after throwing 96 pitches in Arizona’s regional-opening victory over Sam Houston State, Bannister pitched into the eighth inning in sweltering heat and under extreme pressure.
He exited with a three-run lead and with another 102 pitches having been thrown. His teammates greeted him outside the dugout with handshakes, glove taps and fist bumps. The crowd at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field — mostly consisting of Ragin’ Cajuns fans — gave him a standing ovation.
“This guy’s the national pitcher of the year. I don’t care what anybody says,” Johnson said of Bannister, who improved to 11-2 and was named the regional’s most outstanding player.
“There’s not one person in the country that is more valuable to their team’s success in 2016 than Nathan.”
It took four years at the UA — and a newfound devotion to conditioning — for Bannister to become the Wildcats’ staff ace.
It took until the seventh inning of Arizona’s elimination game against Sam Houston State on Sunday night for Johnson to decide Bannister would start on two days’ rest.
“It was a pretty easy decision once we knew he was OK and willing,” Johnson said.
Bannister said Saturday’s rainout helped him get ready. He was able to lift and condition at the team hotel.
He had done something like this once before, as a senior at Liberty High in Peoria. But as Bannister noted: “That was four years ago. A lot can change.”
The way teams handle pitchers has changed over the years. Many baseball analysts and medical experts would consider Bannister throwing 198 pitches in a four-day span an unnecessary risk — even a reckless act.
“I would never compromise anything with him or his future unless we had 100 percent conviction and commitment to completing this task,” Johnson said. “The other thing is, he’s a little bit bigger than me, and if I didn’t let him pitch, I might get pummeled into the ground.”
Bannister said he wasn’t sore after the game. He didn’t have an ice pack on his arm.
“I’m pretty much going off adrenaline now,” Bannister said.
It carried him through seven-plus innings of three-run, winning baseball.
Small ball
In many ways, the second game between the teams was the opposite of the first.
In their first meeting, on Sunday, the Ragin’ Cajuns jumped to a 3-0 lead, played from ahead throughout and kept the pressure on the Wildcats with persistent small-ball execution.
Arizona flipped the script in Monday’s early game.
The Wildcats scored three runs in the first and two in the second. They executed six sacrifice bunts in the game, including three successful squeeze bunts. Shortstop Louis Boyd had three sacrifices and drove in two runs with safety squeeze bunts up the first-base line.
“They’re a very good bunting team. We knew that,” Ragin’ Cajuns coach Tony Robichaux said. “The problem with the bunt is when you start to mishandle it. That’s when an inning can spin out of control on you.”
On two of Arizona’s bunt attempts, Louisiana-Lafayette failed to get outs. ULL got two outs to end the first inning when the Wildcats attempted the double squeeze that the Ragin’ Cajuns pulled off Sunday. Bobby Dalbec got the bunt down to score Alfonso Rivas III, but ULL second baseman Joe Robbins threw out Ryan Aguilar at the plate.
Inside pitch
• Four other Wildcats made the all-regional team: Aguilar, Dalbec, outfielder Zach Gibbons and catcher Cesar Salazar.
• Bannister became the first Arizona pitcher to reach 11 wins in a season since 2012, when Kurt Heyer (13) and Konner Wade (11) did it.
• Junior Kevin Ginkel earned his third save of the season in Monday’s first game, pitching 1º scoreless innings. He entered the game with the bases loaded and one out in the eighth and got ULL’s Kennon Fontenot to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.
