Arizona baseball walks off Dixie State in extra innings

Arizona holds the longest active scoring streak of any power-conference college baseball team, now sitting at 181 consecutive games. That run was in jeopardy for much of Tuesday night, before the Wildcats’ offense finally broke through late to avoid a momentum-killing loss.

The UA forced extra innings with a run in the bottom of the eighth, then walked off Dixie State—literally—with a bases loaded walk in the 10^th to win 2-1.

Chase Davis battled back from a 1-2 count to draw the free pass, scoring Nik McClaughry from third base. He started the bottom of the 10^th with a single to left-center, then got to third after Daniel Susac blooped a double that landed just inside the right field line. Tanner O’Tremba was intentionally walked, setting up Davis to draw his second walk of the game.

“I got lucky, hit it in the right spot at the right time and came out victorious,” said Susac, who could have also been referring to his game-tying RBI triple with one out in the eighth that the Dixie State rightfielder overran trying to short-hop. “I think every at-bat I had today was two strikes. For me with two strikes, I don’t try to get too big. For me, I just try to hit it hard. I hit one of them okay, the other one not very much. But to me, it’s just trying to get on base, get a hit and do what I can for the team.”

Left-hander Holden Christian got the win with two innings of relief, striking out four. Six Arizona pitchers combined to fan 17 Trailblazers, with start Quinn Flanagan striking out nine in five two-hit innings.

“We were like, okay, we’ll get three or four out of him, and we almost sent them out there for the sixth,” Hale said of Flanagan.

Arizona (8-1) had eight hits but left eight men on base, five in the first three innings. It also struck out 13 times, the fifth time in nine game it has had 10 or more strikeouts.

“We had another opportunity to win it in the ninth,” Hale said. “Those are situations that we just have to get better at. We have to get better at the little things of driving runners in. We had a chance to score a run early in the game and we didn’t get a good read on the ball. To win close games, you have to pitch, you have to play defense and you have to be good with the baserunning.”

Arizona returns to action Friday when it begins a 3-game series at Hi Corbett against Texas State.