Special to CollegeBaseballInsider.com
The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos punched their ticket to Omaha in the most unlikely of ways. Down 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth, facing MLB first round pick Zack Burdi and his 100-mile-per-hour arm, Gauchos freshman Sam Cohen hit a walk-off grand slam.
Cohen had hit one homer in college baseball and had only played in 19 games, but he stepped to the plate with the bases loaded in the ninth inning and crushed a 92-mile-per-hour change up over the right field fence.
His teammates, springing from the dugout in unison, swarmed the home plate umpire and collapsed into a heaping pile of celebration upon Cohen finally touching the plate.
“Honestly, I was thinking about (Burdi), he’s a hell of a pitcher, but I went up there with nothing on my mind,” Cohen said. “All I wanted to do was put the barrel on the ball, and that was it.”
And he did. The hit sailed into the trees beyond the right field fence and crushed the post-season hopes of a Louisville team that was the No. 2 national seed and Vegas favorite to win the College World Series.
“I don’t have a lot of words. I’m still in shock,” UC Santa Barbara coach Andrew Checketts said. “It’s remarkable. As a coach we don’t get to get into the box anymore or play anymore, ultimately it is the players that make the difference and these guys have been a remarkable group in terms of perseverance and belief. It’s a fun group. This is really humbling.”
Santa Barbara, which prior to this season had never made a Super Regional, is heading to Omaha for the College World Series. They were the third bid from a three-bid league.
The Gauchos just knocked off a program that fielded eight Major League Baseball Draft picks, won a share of the ACC title, had been to six Super Regionals and three College World Series trips in the last decade. Louisville was the top-seeded team from the ACC, a league that sent 10 teams to the NCAA Tournament.
It was a true David-and-Goliath matchup and Cohen provided the final blow. And for Louisville, it was another stinging defeat after falling to Cal State Fullerton in a Super Regional at home last season, too.
“We have to tip our hat to UC Santa Barbara. This is a great accomplishment,” Louisville coach Dan McDonnell said. “We didn’t lose that game, those guys won it. We didn’t take advantage of enough opportunities we had throughout the game and they kept it close. They kept it within striking distance and those are the three toughest outs to get in baseball.”
For Louisville, it was their first loss of a lead after eight innings in 187 games. Burdi’s older brother, Nick, was the closer prior to him, and both had been tremendous at ending games with Louisville in the win column.
McDonnell declined to say what he told Burdi after the game, but choked up when asked and said, “I wouldn’t be able to get through telling you all what I told Zack, but obviously I walked back out there and I hugged him because you know he’s hurting. What he and his brother and his family have meant to this program, I‘m forever grateful. And you just don’t want him to blame himself.”
As McDonnell said, Louisville had its chances. Neither team touched the scoreboard in the first three innings and it looked like it was going to be a pitcher’s duel with two outs in the fourth inning as Louisville’s fortunes changed in a big way.
Call it the reverse cycle. Louisville’s Brendan McKay broke the game open with a towering home run over the trees in right-center. Then Devin Hairston hit a triple. The next batter, Blake Tiberi, hit a double to score Hairston from third. Then Danny Rosenbaum hit a single to right field to score Tiberi from third. A homer, a triple, a double and a single in four consecutive batters during a two-out rally.
Amazingly, those three runs for Louisville were the only runs scored for either team until the bottom of the ninth. The Cardinals stranded eight runners on base, several who were on second base with just one out during the inning. They also had three critical base-running miscues.
As UCSB cycled through four pitchers to keep Louisville’s lineup quiet the rest of the game, Louisville starter Drew Harrington continued to work. He struck out a Louisville post-season record 12 batters in 7.0 innings of work, throwing under 100 pitches.
“It was miserable facing that guy today,” UC Santa Barbara’s JJ Muno said. “He was sitting so low on the fastball and the slider started up higher and we all just kept swinging over it. Every strikeout, we’d all just groan in the dugout.”
The ACC Pitcher of the Year, Harrington struck out four of his first five batters, six of his first 10 and continued to pound the strike zone until he gave way to 100 mph reliever Zack Burdi in the eighth inning with a pair of runners on.
Burdi quickly got out of a jam with a double play on his second pitch then closed out the eighth with a strikeout. Burdi opened the ninth by striking out Gaucho slugger Austin Bush, but then he allowed a hit to JJ Muno and walked both Dempsey Grover and Billy Frederick.
That’s when Cohen slugged his game-winner, igniting the dugout into a raucous celebration.
SMUSHED UMP
In the course of the celebration, home plate umpire Danny Everett was knocked off his feet and smushed under a pile of sweaty, celebrating Gauchos.
“He was right next to me as Sammy was coming home and I knew it wasn’t going to end well,” Muno said.
FINAL GAME FOR LOUISVILLE STARS
It was surely the final game for at least seven Louisville stars. The Cardinals had eight players taken in the Major League Baseball draft, including a trio of underclassmen drafted in the first round.
“This was a special, special group of kids,” McDonnell said.
The Cardinals coach got emotional in the post-game, but he closed out his last answer with, “You will see me again, and this program will be back.”
LOTTERY
When told of the stat that Louisville hadn’t lost a lead in the ninth inning in 186 games, Checketts was genuinely amazed.
“Wow, that’s incredible. I need to go buy a lottery ticket,” Checkouts said.
BURDI’S ARM
During the ninth inning, Burdi was clocked by ESPN cameras at 103 miles per hour. His fastball hit 100 several other times in the 26 pitches he threw in the final two innings.
“I was trying to lighten the mood a little, but I told him I can’t wait to watch him on TV in September when he is playing in the Big Leagues,” Harrington said. “I know he feels like the game was on him, but it really wasn’t.”