Vanderbilt's Jayson Gonzalez, center, celebrates with teammates after hitting a two-run home run in the fifth inning of Saturday's College World Series opener at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha.

 Rebecca S. Gratz, Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. – It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say Arizona wanted to play Vanderbilt in the College World Series. But the Wildcats certainly didn’t back down from the challenge of facing the defending champs.

They went toe-to-toe with the Commodores on a warm Saturday evening at TD Ameritrade Park but couldn’t register the knockout blow.

Vanderbilt outlasted Arizona in a back-and-forth game that ended at 11 p.m. local time, winning 7-6 in 12 innings in front of an announced crowd of 23,870.

The loss knocked the Wildcats into the losers’ bracket on their side of the eight-team field. They will face a familiar foe, Stanford, in an elimination game Monday. The Cardinal lost to North Carolina State earlier Saturday. Stanford is the last team to have beaten Arizona in a series, back in early May.

The Wildcats (45-17) haven’t lost two games in a row since mid-April. They will have to keep that streak intact to stick around past Monday.

“Great college baseball game,” UA coach Jay Johnson said. “Two really good teams with really good players. Credit to Vanderbilt. Put a few more quality at-bats together. Continued to put pressure on us. Felt like we were on the ropes every inning, doing everything we could to get out of it. Just came up a little bit short. Disappointed for our players, but we'll be ready to go on Monday.”

Arizona went ahead on Ryan Holgate’s two-run homer off Vanderbilt ace Kumar Rocker in the sixth inning. But the Wildcats couldn’t hold the lead, surrendering three in the seventh. Preston Price – who had been the Cats’ most effective reliever before a midseason arm injury – yielded a run-scoring single and the go-ahead two-run homer to Carter Young.

Arizona has made multiple comebacks this season, and the Wildcats weren't done. Daniel Susac led off the top of the ninth with a double. Pinch runner Mac Bingham advanced to third on Nik McClaughry’s infield single and scored on Donta’ Williams’ sacrifice fly.

Vanderbilt threatened in the 11th, loading the bases with one out. Vince Vannelle entered from the bullpen and retired the next two batters. He practically skipped off the field.

The Commodores loaded the bases again in the 12th, and Vannelle couldn’t get out of it this time. Jayson Gonzalez rolled a single up the middle to score Isaiah Thomas to end the game.

Arizona's Vince Vannelle sits on the dugout after giving up game-winning hit to Vanderbilt's Jayson Gonzalez in the 12th inning of Saturday's 7-6 loss.

“Credit Gonzalez,” Johnson said. “He got inside it and (hit) it just enough to punch it through there.

“They did just enough offensively where it seemed like we were on the ropes every inning.”

Arizona lost despite Chase Silseth outpitching his more heralded counterpart.

Arizona got to Rocker — who had been nearly unhittable in the postseason throughout his career — early and late. The Wildcats scored three runs in the first inning. Rocker then got into a groove, retiring 15 consecutive batters.

That streak ended when Rocker hit Kobe Kato on the knee with a pitch with two outs in the top of the sixth. On Rocker’s 100th pitch, Holgate took him deep. Right fielder Thomas barely moved, and the ball landed in the last row of the bleachers.

Neither Silseth nor No. 2 starter Garrett Irvin have numbers or reputations on par with Rocker and his tag-team partner, Jack Leiter. But Silseth and Irvin have their coach’s trust, and that counts for a lot.

“We're in Omaha. We're not in Omaha without the starting pitchers doing what they've done to this point in the season,” Johnson said Friday. “No secret Garrett didn't have a great outing last week. Chase has had a couple bumps here lately.

“But they possess some of the things that I mentioned in describing our opponent's pitching staff. The best thing that those guys (have), their best quality, is what's inside them in terms of their competitiveness, their drive, their winning-type quality where they found a way when they haven't always been their best.

“I don't think (for) either of those guys, or any of our pitchers, (that) this will be too much for them. This team has responded to everything thrown at them. Really looking forward to the guys that take the mound for our team and how they, I won't call it rise to the occasion, but how they handle themselves in this environment, because we have a lot of trust in them.”

Arizona's Jacob Berry, left, celebrates with teammate Chase Davis after scoring off a hit by Branden Boissiere during a three-run first inning.

Silseth wasn’t in his best form when he arrived in Omaha. Although he had 8-1 record, Silseth hadn’t made it to the sixth inning in four of his past five outings.

But Johnson liked the way Silseth battled against Ole Miss in the Super Regional opener. Silseth allowed three runs in the first inning but didn’t allow another to cross the plate in 4 2/3 total frames. Arizona rallied to win 9-3.

Silseth handled the Omaha environment just fine. He allowed a run in the first inning, but only because left fielder Tyler Casagrande lost a ball in the sun that fell for a double.

Vanderbilt didn’t barrel a Silseth pitch until the bottom of the fourth, when Gonzalez hit a two-run, opposite-field homer on a 2-0 count. That was Silseth’s only major mistake in his best start since his last in Pac-12 play.

Arizona starting pitcher Chase Silseth was stellar in Saturday's College World Series opener, striking out six in 6.1 innings before running into trouble in the seventh.

“The one he put out, that was the one pitch I would take away from the whole game,” said Silseth, who was charged with four runs in 6 1/3 innings. “I thought that was the one bad pitch I made. Left it up in the zone for him.”

A walk — on a pitched that appeared to be a strike — ended Silseth’s night with one out in the bottom of the seventh. He left with a 5-3 lead.

“I was just battling out there, competing, to give my team a chance to win,” Silseth said. “I felt like I did that. So I did my job. And always have trust going to the bullpen with my guys.”

Johnson has ample experience in elimination games; his team won six during the 2016 NCAA Tournament. But the Wildcats have to beat the Cardinal before they can even think about making a run. That’s Johnson’s sole focus for now.

“If you look too much further beyond that, it complicates Monday,” Johnson said. “These guys love playing together, and we want to continue to play together. We want to keep going. I think we have enough pitching to work our way back through it. But it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is Monday. And so everything will be about Monday.”

Inside pitch

  • Arizona’s last three games in the College World Series have ended in one-run defeats. The UA lost to Coastal Carolina in the last two games of the 2016 CWS finals by scores of 5-4 and 4-3.
  • The game marked Arizona’s first extra-inning contest in the CWS since a 4-3 win over Florida State in 2012. The Wildcats are 1-4 in extra-inning games this season.
  • The Cats struck out a season-high 19 times. They walked only once.
  • Williams’ double in the 12th extended his on-base streak to 48 games, tying Zach Gibbons (2016) for the longest by a Wildcat since 1998.
  • Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin and Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke attended graduate school together at Ohio State in the 1980s. After serving as a grad assistant for the Buckeyes, Corbin got his first head-coaching job two years later at Presbyterian.

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Contact sports reporter Michael Lev at 573-4148 or mlev@tucson.com. On Twitter @michaeljlev