OMAHA, Neb. — Two smudges of chalk 30 feet up the third base line from home plate. A wisp of chalk dust halfway down the right field line.
That’s the difference, Friday at the College World Series, between one team winning its 24th game in a row and the other, Arizona, stopping that streak.
But the Wildcats lost, 7-4, in a game full of quirks — a balk, fan interference, hits batsmen, what Arizona coach Chip Hale called “funky bunts” — to a Coastal Carolina team that has the look (and the luck) of a CWS finalist.
Arizona’s Owen Kramkowski (17) dives for a bunt hit by Coastal Carolina’s Ty Dooley (3) but misses the catch to load the bases during the second inning in Game 1 of the Men’s College World Series at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Neb., on June 13, 2025.
For the middle innings of Friday’s game, Arizona did, too, bouncing back from a bad start and shutting the door on a couple CCU rallies.
Mason White hit a homer and later drew a hit-by-pitch walk after fouling off six pitches. Garrett Hicks, a Pima Community College transfer, got two strikeouts to end the seventh inning and walked off with a roar, gesturing to an excited Arizona crowd.
But Hicks couldn’t get that third out in the bottom of the eighth before the Chanticleers’ Wells Sykes, on an 0-2 pitch, sliced a ball toward the right field foul line. It stayed fair, right on the chalk.
“Great pitch, almost on the ground, guy dunks it into right for a double,” Hale said.
Because Schwab Field’s dimensions are so cavernous, outfielders — like Arizona’s Brendan Summerhill — tend to play deep to guard against doubles in the gap. In this case, the ball blooped in front of him.
“Would’ve liked him to get to it and hold (Sykes) to a single, that would have been great,” Hale said. “But it’s just so hard where it landed and then it went to the right.”
That play opened a three-run floodgate. Intentional walk. Single. And then, after Arizona brought in national Stopper of the Year Tony Pluta, a two-run double. That deficit was too big, even as the Wildcats brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth.
They hit into a double play. It was that kind of game.
Arizona flirted with an upset and even forced Coastal Carolina to use one of its traditional starters, Cameron Flukey, in relief. The Wildcats’ own starter, Owen Kramkowski, battled, offsetting nine hits with seven strikeouts over five innings. He kept Arizona in it.
If he had held onto one of the worst bunt attempts you’ll ever see at the CWS, Kramkowski might have gotten the win.
That’s where the smudges come in. One for each run allowed in the bottom of the second inning. You could look at those smudges all game, too, for three hours.
They occurred after CCU shortstop Ty Dooley tried to move over runners from first and second base with what would have been Coastal’s 53rd sacrifice bunt of the season.
Dooley popped the ball up. For a bunt, it was way up — maybe that made it trickier to grab. Catcher Adonys Guzman, Hale said, appeared not to see the ball and third baseman Maddox Mihalakis didn’t get a great jump.
Kramkowski did. His 6-foot-3, 168-pound frame bounded toward the ball.
“I saw the ball was going to be up in the air for awhile,” Kramkowski said. “I didn’t see anyone near it. I knew I was going to have to make a play on it and just went all out for it, I guess, just trying to make something happen.”
The ball briefly nestled in Kramkowski’s glove before spilling out as he landed.
“Owen’s a great athlete,” Hale said. “That’s a play he makes. He had it in his glove. I think when he hit the ground it just got jarred out.”
That’s the margin Friday afternoon. A dropped bunt. A bloop double. Arizona took Coastal Carolina to late innings and left some marks on the Chanticleers’ vaunted pitching staff.
White bopped a homer just over the left field fence. Guzman pounded a double that hit the right field fence. Mihalakis laced a double over the infield shift — that’s one way to beat it — tying the game in the fourth. Arizona took a brief lead in the sixth thanks to three hit batsmen. Coastal answered again and again. That’s baseball.
This is, too: To reach the CWS championship series, the Chanticleers only need two more wins. The Wildcats must win four.
“Everything that goes on with Omaha that’s really cool and really fun — is over for us,” Hale said, recounting his postgame speech to players. “It’s back to foxhole mentality, playing for each other and worrying about baseball. We got a lot of family here, lot of friends, they’re going to have to make hard decisions to get themselves ready for Sunday.”
Arizona’s done that all year, Hale added. It lost last week 18-2 at North Carolina before winning the Super Regional. Won series over Oklahoma State, BYU and Houston after losing the first game, too.
“It’s going to be tougher,” Hale said.
No margin for error. Big climb ahead.
