Arizona baseball recap: Wildcats score late to down McNeese State for second time

Another early deficit overcome by the Cats

The Arizona Wildcats could not hit McNeese State Cowboys pitcher Rhett Deaton on Friday night.

Luckily for Arizona, Deaton only pitched six innings.

The sophomore righty threw just 68 pitches on the night, but was replaced to start the seventh by Aidan Anderson while leading 3-1. That’s when the Wildcats’ bats woke up, leading to an 8-3 Arizona (6-0) victory.

Jared Oliva led the inning off with a rope, but the ball hit directly off of the second base bag, resulting in a single.

Cameron Cannon followed that with a blooper to center that bounced off the shortstop’s glove, but was scored a single.

That brought Louis Boyd up with the intention of bunting the runners over, but a couple of failed attempts put the senior in a hole with two strikes.

So he was given the hit sign, and looped one right behind the first baseman. There was a play at the plate, but Oliva slid past the tag, bringing the Wildcats within a run.

Anderson then issued a walk to Cal Stevenson to load the bases, forcing McNeese to bring in Trent Fontenot, making the 55th appearance of his Cowboy career.

After striking out Mitchell Morimoto, Fontenot drew a ground ball by Alfonso Rivas right to the first baseman.

Instead of coming home with it, the Cowboy defender went to his own bag, allowing Arizona to tie the game.

Fontenot got another groundball, this time from JJ Matijevic. But the McNeese shortstop bobbled the hard hit ball, allowing Boyd to score and Arizona to take the lead.

That brought up freshman phenom Nick Quintana. He was able to pick up his first hit of the night, extending his hitting streak to six games to start his college career. The ball lined off of Fontenot, allowing Stevenson to score and extend the lead to two runs.

In the eighth, the Wildcats were able to add to their lead. Three walks, a sac bunt, and a single resulted in a couple more runs. Morimoto and Matijevic picked up RBI singles in the frame.

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Arizona was down 3-1 after six innings due to a poor performance in the first inning.

Junior college transfer Tylor Megill got the ball to start the game, the second time he’d been called upon for the second game of the series.

And for the second time, he was unable to make it out of the second inning.

Megill hit three batters in his inning-plus of work, but all in pitchers’ counts (0-1, 1-2, and 1-2). The third plunking led to Johnson bringing Michael Flynn in the game.

Flynn allowed an infield single to the first batter he faced, but that was the only runner that would reach base against him in his six innings on the bump.

Cameron Ming tossed a scoreless 8th. He gave way to Seve Romo in the 9th, but Romo was unable to record an out in two batters faced.

Landon Faulkner jogged in from right field to finish the game.

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THURSDAY: ARIZONA 9, MCNEESE STATE 3

Despite the three runs given up, JC Cloney has not allowed an earned run in his last 30 innings of work.

The senior lefty threw 7 ¹⁄₃ innings of six-hit ball on Thursday evening, striking out six Cowboys along the way.

Five different Wildcats had multi-hit games on the night. Four different Cats scored two runs apiece as well despite only five team RBI.

Morimoto was in the leadoff spot and had the performance of the day at the plate, going 2-for-5 with two runs and two RBI. Cesar Salazar was 2-for-3 with a walk, 2 runs, and 1 RBI.

Arizona was down 2-1 after three innings, but a five-run fourth put them in front for good.

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Arizona and McNeese State play the third game of their four-game series on Saturday afternoon at 1 PM MT at Hi Corbett. Austin Sanders is scheduled to pitch for the Cowboys.

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