Baylor battles back to beat top seed

Down 7-0 after six innings, Bears rally for three in ninth frame to tame Tulane

? Baylor wanted to stick around and play some more baseball at the College World Series.

To do that, the Bears staged a remarkable comeback Tuesday night to knock out top-seeded Tulane. Down 7-0 after six innings, the Bears rallied for three runs in the ninth, scoring the winning run on a throwing error by Tulane second baseman Joe Holland to stun and eliminate the Green Wave, 8-7.

“It’s a 27-out game. You can’t hold the ball. You can’t take a knee,” Baylor coach Steve Smith said.

One out after reliever Brandon Gomes issued an intentional walk to load the bases, Baylor’s Paul Witt hit a hopper to Holland near the bag at second. Holland touched the base for the second out of the inning.

But his relay throw to complete a double play that would have ended the game and given Tulane the win went past first baseman Micah Owings.

The tying run scored, and then so did a jubilant Zach Dillon from third with the winner as the ball hopped away.

“I was really not expecting the outcome that happened,” Witt said. “When I hit it, I didn’t know if he (Holland) would get a long hop or a short hop and luckily for us it was a short hop. I was just running as fast as I could and as soon as it went past him (Owings), I turned around and looked and saw Zach score.”

That set off a wild celebration for the Bears.

“In 30 years of coaching this is the toughest loss I’ve had … the way it ended and the guys that were involved,” Tulane coach Rick Jones said.

Baylor (46-23) earned another meeting with Texas and must beat the Longhorns twice, beginning today, to go to the best-of-three championship series, which starts Saturday.

Arizona 8, Nebraska 7

Jeff Larish kept hitting the long ball, but it was small ball that helped Arizona State advance in the College World Series on Tuesday.

Larish matched a College World Series record with three homers, and J.J. Sferra drove in the game-winning run with a bloop single in the 11th inning, eliminating hometown favorite Nebraska.

“I’m still trying to let it set in,” Larish said. “We’ve been responding to adversity all year, and today was no different.”

Larish’s third homer tied it in the bottom of the ninth, and Sferra’s single in the 11th punctuated the 4-hour, 7-minute game, sending the Sun Devils (41-24) against No. 7 Florida today. Arizona State needs to beat the Gators twice to reach the championship round.

Larish’s two-out, ninth-inning drive over the center-field wall off Brett Jensen made him only the third player in CWS history to hit three homers, matching the record set by Florida State’s J.D. Drew in 1995 and tied by Stanford’s Edmund Muth in 2000.

The homer also negated Andy Gerch’s three-run blast for Nebraska (57-15) in the top of the ninth that gave the Huskers a 7-5 lead.

Larish, who bats left-handed, led off the game with an opposite-field shot and homered to right in the third. He now has 23 homers.

“That’s ridiculous. It’s like a trifecta – a home run to every field,” Murphy said.