OMAHA — Connor Rowe hit a game-winning solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, moments after Cameron Rupp tied it with a homer of his own, as Texas came from behind to defeat Arizona State 4-3 in the College World Series on Friday night.
Two batters before Rowe sent a shot into the left-field seats, Rupp homered over the 22-foot wall in straightaway center field to tie it.
Texas (49-14-1) advanced to the CWS best-of-three finals starting Monday against LSU.
Rowe, who batted in the No. 9 spot, hit the first walkoff homer in Omaha since Texas’ Chance Wheeless did it against Baylor in 2005.
It looked as if the Sun Devils (51-14) would force a rematch today for the Bracket 2 championship after they took a 3-2 lead in the top of the ninth on Zach Wilson’s RBI triple.
Mitchell Lambson (9-5) struck out Brandon Loy to start the bottom of the ninth, but Rupp tied it with a homer that carried at least 420 feet, one of the longest in recent CWS memory.
After Preston Clark popped out, Rowe hit the first offering from Lambson over the left-field wall, well above a leaping Kole Calhoun.
LSU 14, Arkansas 5The Tigers hit four home runs, raising their CWS total to nine in three games, and Anthony Ranaudo bounced back from a subpar outing to throw six shutout innings.
The victory sent the Tigers (54-16) into next week’s finals against the Longhorns.
“It’s a dream come true that we got to this point,” Tigers third-year coach Paul Mainieri said. “When I say a dream, it’s not that I didn’t think we could. We thought we could when we started the year. Now there’s an opportunity for us, and now we’ll see if we can seize it.”
LSU, which has won 13 games in a row, scored in six of the nine innings and shut out Arkansas (41-24) for 14 straight innings over their two meetings in Omaha.
Ranaudo (11-3), who lasted 3 1/3 innings in last Saturday’s start against Virginia, allowed four hits and had five strikeouts. Austin Ross took over to start the seventh with LSU leading 11-0. The Associated Press
