Arizona Wildcats baseball season ends with 7-0 loss to Dallas Baptist in NCAA Tournament

The college baseball punditry dubbed the Tucson Regional the toughest of them all. A quality team was going to go 0-2.

That team just so happened to be the host Arizona Wildcats.

After an inspired campaign that included Pac-12 regular-season and tournament titles, Arizona picked a terrible time for a pair of lackluster performances.

No. 13 national seed Arizona lost 7-0 to Dallas Baptist on Saturday afternoon at Hi Corbett Field, ending the Wildcats’ season in unceremonious fashion. That loss followed a 9-4 setback against Grand Canyon on Friday night.

GCU was set to play West Virginia in a winners’ bracket matchup Saturday night. The loser will face DBU (45-14) in an elimination game Sunday afternoon.

Arizona reached the NCAA Tournament in all three seasons under Chip Hale but has gone 0-2 each of the past two years. The Wildcats have lost five straight games in regional play.

“I actually thought about that as the game was getting worse and worse today,” said Hale, whose team finished 36-23. “As a head coach, that’s my job. We have to find a way.

“We did pretty well in Coral Gables (in 2022), got to the championship game. We were not good in Fayetteville (last year), and we were not good here. So we have to figure out a better way to do it. And if it’s the way I’m preparing them, then I’ll have to check myself.”

Veteran starting pitching carried Arizona’s young lineup all year, but the Wildcats’ top two starters didn’t have their best stuff in the NCAA Tournament. After Clark Candiotti allowed five runs in six innings vs. GCU, Cam Walty surrendered six in four-plus frames against DBU. Patriots DH Tom Poole hit a pair of two-run homers against Walty, who suffered his first career loss as a starter at Hi Corbett.

Hale took out Walty after Poole’s second homer. The coach and the UA infielders made sure to acknowledge the senior’s accomplishments as a Wildcat — including stellar efforts to help clinch both Pac-12 championships — before he walked off the Hi Corbett mound for the last time.

“I just thanked him for everything he’s done,” Hale said. “They all told him, ‘Hey, we would not be here without you. Thanks for gutting it out today.’ I just gave him a big hug.”

Walty’s go-to pitch, the cutter, didn’t have its usual bite.

“Cam had the arsenal to battle these guys well. He just didn’t have his good cutter today. That happens,” Hale said. “Sometimes you’re not going to have it. Today’s one of them.

“Their guy had really good stuff and mixed well. We just couldn’t get anything going.”

Similar to USC’s Caden Aoki in the Pac-12 Tournament championship game, DBU starter Jaron DeBerry kept Arizona’s hitters off balance with a steady diet of breaking pitches. He allowed three hits and four walks while striking out six in six scoreless innings. DeBerry threw a career-high 118 pitches in the 100-plus-degree heat.

“Spin is definitely one of my best offerings,” DeBerry said. “It’s something that I use early on in the game. And when I can locate my fastball, it just makes everything play up.

“We knew that’s a very aggressive team. They have a few guys with some power, but they like to get their swings off. So early on, if I can land my breaking ball like I did, that establishes everything and makes it a lot easier to go deep into the game whenever they have to think about five different pitches coming at them instead of just a couple.”

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The Wildcats couldn’t dent the DBU bullpen either, leading to Arizona’s second shutout loss of the season.

The UA put multiple runners on base in the fourth, fifth and ninth innings but couldn’t score. Each frame ended with a flyout.

Arizona also failed to score in the first inning for the 10th consecutive game.

Veteran second baseman Garen Caulfield was the only Wildcat to have multiple hits. He tried his best to sum up a season full of thrills that ended with a thud.

“I’m going to look back at this season as a major success,” Caulfield said. “Not only for the guys in the clubhouse but for Chip and just the university as a whole.

“We were doubted all year. And to make it as far as we did, we can walk away from Hi Corbett today saying that this year is successful.

“We’d like it to end different. Our goal obviously is to win a national championship here every year. We can’t hang our heads. We were picked to finish ninth in Pac, and our boys rallied.”

Caulfield was in the dugout, awaiting his next turn to bat, when the game ended. The fifth-year junior, who could be drafted this summer, took a beat to look around the stadium and recall all the memories he and his teammates have made at Hi Corbett.

Caulfield started to choke up as he recalled that moment during the postgame news conference. Hale put his left hand on Caulfield’s shoulder to comfort him.

“That’s just how much this program means to me,” Caulfield said. “I’m glad we had our last game here. It didn’t end the way we wanted it to. But I’m just super thankful.”

Inside pitch

Senior outfielder Emilio Corona singled in his final at-bat in the ninth inning for his lone hit in the regional. He started both games despite a fracture in his right hand suffered May 16 vs. Oregon State. “I was so happy for Emilio to get a hit,” Hale said. “That just kind of summarizes this ballclub. They’re just never gonna die, and I’m really proud of them.”

UA right-handers Kyler Heyne and Tony Pluta each threw two hitless innings out of the bullpen.

The top three hitters in DBU’s lineup — Michael Dattalo, Chayton Krauss and Poole — combined to go 7 for 14 with six runs scored and six RBIs.

Photos: Arizona falls to Dallas Baptist 7-0, game two of the NCAA Regionals