With their 1-0 lead in the best-of-3 series, Arkansas couldn’t lose the College World Series tonight. But when you go into the ninth inning with a 3-2 lead, you just want to wrap things up there.
Oregon State didn’t go quietly, though; a leadoff walk, a sacrifice bunt, and a groundout put the tying run on third with two outs. Then, this foul pop probably should have ended the game, but, well, this happened:
That’s not great any time, much less with the national championship on the line! With new life, Oregon State’s Cadyn Grenier made Arkansas pay:
That’s brutal for Arkansas, but it got even worse a few batters later, when OSU’s Trevor Larnach did this:
That’s a heartbreaking turnaround for Arkansas, going from one strike (and one caught pop-up) away to being down 5-3 and staring at a winner-take-all contest tomorrow. But the Razorbacks didn’t go down quietly themselves, putting a man on and forcing Oregon State to go to their closer, Jake Mullholland.
After a strikeout, Mullholland ended up kicking off this game-ending double play:
With that, we’ll have a Game 3 tomorrow night, and if Arkansas manages to shake off how close they came tonight and pull off a win, it should be the final nail in the coffin for the concept of momentum in sports.
(Also, don’t slide into first, kids.)
Larnach was actually the next batter, following Grenier.