Coastal got by TCU after another complete game from Andrew Beckwith, while Arizona's bats came alive in a rematch against Oklahoma State.
We'll need two more games to decide who plays in the finals of the College World Series next week. Both Coastal Carolina and Arizona staved off elimination on Friday to force a pair of winner-takes-all showdowns on Saturday.
Coastal, which knocked off TCU, 4-1, will take on the Frogs again at 8 p.m. ET. Arizona, which battered Oklahoma State, 9-3, will attempt to win its sixth elimination game of the tournament at 3 p.m. ET.
Chanticleers ace Andrew Beckwith, who had never gone nine innings before arriving in Omaha, threw his second complete game of the week to push past TCU in Friday's nightcap. After a relatively brisk, sub-100 pitches against Florida last weekend, Beckwith needed a career-high 137 tosses to put away the Frogs. He threw 101 of those for strikes, clamping down on a TCU offense that had put up 11 runs in its first couple of games in Omaha (an impressive number during a CWS that's seen a record low in scoring). Frogs slugger Luken Baker, who homered in each of TCU's two wins, started 0-for-3 before finally sneaking a single up the middle against Beckwith in the ninth.
Beckwith's only major mistake of the night came on a solo shot by Dane Steinhagen to trim Coastal's lead to three runs in the eighth inning.
The Chants managed to scrape out their four runs on just four hits, with two of those runs coming in a third inning that included a hit batter and an error that would have gotten TCU out of a bases-loaded jam. Coastal added a pair of insurance runs in the seventh, stringing together a walk, a single, a sac fly and a double.
Arizona stays alive with a 9-3 win over Oklahoma State
This was the Cowboys' first loss of the entire tournament and, not coincidentally, it was the first time we'd seen them struggle on the mound. OK State allowed three more runs in nine innings than it had the previous seven tournament games combined. Arizona jumped out to a 3-run lead on freshman starter Elliott Jensen in the second inning, then tacked on another in the top of the fourth to make it 4-0. OSU tightened things up with a pair of runs in the bottom of that frame, but the bullpen coughed up five runs in the eighth and ninth that put the game out of reach.
Arizona got a similarly short outing from its own starter, Nathan Bannister, who was brought back on short rest five days after throwing 118 pitches in a 5-1 win over Miami. Bannister, whose heavy use rate during the postseason has been criticized, had retired the first eight OK State batters when discomfort in his forearm forced him into the dugout two outs into the second inning. That's not an altogether surprising development for a guy who led all DI players in innings pitched during the regular season and whose 29.2 NCAA Tourney innings are six more than anyone else.
Bannister has thrown 449 pitches over five tournament starts, including a regional round in which he threw 198 pitches in a four-day span.
Nathan Bannister's postseason:
June 3: 7 IP, 96 P
June 6: 7 IP, 102 P
June 11: 6 IP, 86 P
June 18: 7 IP, 118 P
Left after 2.2 IP, 47 P today
- Michael Lananna (@mlananna) June 24, 2016
"We don't ever attach anything to what we're doing," head coach Jay Johnson told The Advocate after that regional game in Lafayette, La. "Everybody knows the consequences of these games. That being said, this young man can do no wrong in my eyes. I would never compromise anything with him, or his future, unless we didn't have 100 percent conviction and commitment to completing this task."
Bannister told reporters on Friday that his early exit against OK State was "precautionary."
Bannister says he left game due to precautionary reasons pic.twitter.com/7P05dIKj9C
- Ezra Amacher (@EzraAmacher) June 24, 2016
OK State could have countered Bannister by throwing their own ace, Thomas Hatch, on five days rest. Instead, the Big 12 Pitcher of the Year will get the start on Saturday, giving the Cowboys a huge advantage on the mound. Fresh off a complete-game shoutout against UC Santa Barbara last weekend, Hatch hasn't allowed a single run in three NCAA Tourney starts.
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