OMAHA, Neb. — Aiva Arquette scored from first base on Gavin Turley’s drive into the left-field corner in the bottom of the ninth inning Friday night to give Oregon State a 4-3 walk-off victory over Louisville in the first round of the College World Series.
The Cardinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference had tied it with two runs in the top half before independent Oregon State recorded its fourth walk-off win of the season and second in four games.
The Beavers (48-14-1), who were seeded eighth nationally for the 64-team NCAA Division I baseball tournament, made in through a double-elimination regional and best-of-three super regional back home in Corvallis to return to Omaha for the first time since they won the national title in 2018. They will play again Sunday night, taking on 13th-seeded Sun Belt Conference champion Coastal Carolina (54-11), which beat Arizona 7-4 earlier Friday in the CWS opener.
The Cardinals (40-22) will meet Big 12 champion Arizona (44-20) in an elimination game between teams that weren’t among the 16 national seeds when the bracket was revealed on Memorial Day but made it to the eight-team, double-elimination CWS.
Arquette, a projected first-round pick in next month’s MLB draft, was having a rough night in the field before delivering his third base hit of the game with one out in the ninth. Turley then sent the first pitch from Jake Schweitzer (4-2) on a line into the corner at Charles Schwab Field Omaha. Left fielder Zion Rose tried to cut the ball off but couldn’t come up with it, allowing Arquette to be waved home.
“It was cool because it’s the same thing every at-bat for us: Go up and compete and hit the ball hard,” Turley said. “Knowing we had the top of the lineup up, I knew we had a chance to do something dangerous.”
Turley was drenched with a cooler during the on-field celebration. In the Beavers’ super regional opener last week, Turley scored the winning run on AJ Singer’s walk-off single in a 5-4 win over Florida State in 10 innings.
Louisville was left to regroup.
“They took advantage of an unfortunate situation for us, just a little hiccup here or there, and you get walked off in the ninth,” Cardinals coach Dan McDonnell said. “Must have been a great game for everybody to watch and enjoy. A lot of good baseball. We came up on the short end.”
The Cardinals, who trailed 3-1, stranded runners at third base in the sixth and seventh innings and couldn’t score after getting their leadoff man on base in the eighth.
They broke through to tie it in the ninth against Kellan Oakes (5-0). Rose tripled to left when the ball got past Turley and rolled to the wall, and Tague Davis followed with an RBI single. Alex Alicea reached on shortstop Arquette’s throwing error and ended up on third when catcher Wilson Weber lost his grip on the ball as he tried to get Alicea at second.
Kamau Neighbors drove in Alicea for the tying run with his liner to center before Oakes got a strikeout and groundout to end the inning.
Oregon State starter Dax Whitney was nearly untouchable the first two times through Louisville’s order. He mixed fastballs in the mid-90s with knee-buckling curveballs and changeups to strike out eight of the first 11 batters he faced, and the only hits against him through five innings were a couple balls poked through the infield.
The 6-foot-5 right-hander from Blackfoot, Idaho, finished with nine strikeouts and left with one out in the sixth and two runners on base.
Louisville starter Patrick Forbes matched zeroes with Whitney through three innings, fanning five of the first nine hitters he faced. He finished with 10 strikeouts and was replaced by Justin West with the bases loaded in the sixth after he issued his only walk.
West ended the inning with two strikeouts, but not before Canon Reeder made it 3-1 when Alicea couldn’t pick up his sharply hit grounder.
Oregon State traditionally has not done things the easy way in the CWS. The Beavers lost their openers in five of their previous seven appearances. In 2018, when they won their third national championship, they had to win six elimination games.
This year, the Beavers won four win-or-go-home games in regionals and another in the super regionals. Avoiding the losers bracket is a welcome change.
Said catcher Wilson Weber: “It definitely is nice to not have to go through that from the get-go.”