Game Five of the 2025 College World Series set off with our first elimination game of the event, and the allure of Omaha had taken a backseat for Arizona and Louisville, who were focused on fighting for their postseason lives.
The Wildcats were on their ninth life and looking to regain footing after falling at the hands of Coastal Carolina in Game One of the CWS. That game, Arizona clawed back late to tie the game once again this postseason, before letting up three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to find its way into the losers bracket.
Louisville lost a heartbreaker to Oregon State in Game Two on Friday night, when they were walked off by the Beavers in the ninth inning after putting up two runs in the top of the frame to tie the game. In my CWS Preview, I noted that this is a team that is battle-tested – the Cardinals 2025 campaign ranked top 25 in strength of schedule. To win their first national championship in program history, the Cardinals would need to draw on their experience to survive and advance.
In the top of the first inning, a single into left field by Adonys Guzman scored teammate Aaron Walton from second base and Arizona was quickly on the board. Two at-bats later, Garen Caulfield brought Guzman home on a hot ground ball that snuck into right field, making the advantage 2-0 for the Wildcats.
Arizona was getting the best of Louisville freshman pitcher Ethan Eberle, putting on the pressure in one of these teams’ final games of the season. Eberle finally drew a routine ground ball that got Louisville out of the jam, sending Louisville to the plate.
Louisville did not answer, going three-up, three-down moving the game into the second inning.
An incredible diving catch by left fielder Zion Rose ended the top half of the second inning for Louisville, and with no runs scored, it was again time for the Cardinals to try to get on the board.
In the bottom of the second, Louisville had runners on first and third with one out when Zion Rose reached first base on a fielder’s choice that scored Jake Munroe, making the score 2-1 Arizona.
Arizona’s Adonys Guzman wanted more insulation. With two outs and two strikes against him in the top of the third, he launched a 398-foot home run over the left field bullpen for Arizona’s second home run of this CWS, bringing its edge to 3-1.
In the bottom of the third, Arizona left fielder Easton Breyfogle did his best to one-up Louisville’s Zion Rose with a diving catch of his own, ending the inning with the Wildcats still holding a two-run lead.
The fourth and fifth innings were relatively quiet, with only a handful of runners reaching base between either team. Louisville looked poised to cut the deficit in the bottom of the fifth with runners on first and second with no outs, but three straight outs ensued, and it was onto the sixth.
Inning number six was much of the same, however Arizona forced a pitching change after placing runners on first and second base with no outs. Reliever Tucker Biven came in and caught a bunt that popped in the air for out number one. Then, left fielder Zion Rose caught a fly ball that came his way and fired a strike to Jake Munroe at third base, who easily tagged out Maddox Mihalakis trying to advance to third on the tag up for outs two and three.
Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell then gathered his team in the dugout before heading out to bat and could be seen giving a fiery speech to his team, where he could be made out saying “four innings”, reminding Louisville that the clock was ticking on their 2025 season.
Despite his best effort, the Cardinals went three-up, three-down in the inning, leaving just three innings for them to mount a comeback.
In the bottom of the seventh, after McDonnell’s message had time to marinate with his guys, Louisville inched closer once again.
Garret Pike led the Cardinals off with a double. Kamau Neighbors was then tasked with laying down a sacrifice bunt to move Pike to third base, but he beat the throw to first and suddenly, Louisville had runners on the corners with no outs.
After a pitching change, Lucas Moore scored Pike on a sacrifice fly to center field to bring the score to 3-2.
Arizona reliever Garrett Hicks got out of the inning one batter later, stepping off the mound with less breathing room than he started with.
Again, in the eighth, Louisville put two runners on with no outs, and Arizona’s Chip Hale had seen enough, pulling Hicks for 2025 Stopper of the Year Tony Pluta.
Cue the madness.
Tague Davis stepped up to the plate and put a blooper into the right-center gap that loaded the bases and had Louisville eyeing its second straight late-inning comeback of the CWS.
In the next at-bat, on the first pitch Zion Rose saw from Pluta, he hit a blooper down the right field line that dropped and scored both Jake Munroe and Eddie King Jr. and put Louisville ahead, 4-3.
The hits, and runs, kept coming. Kamau Neighbors was up next, singling into right field to bring Zion Rose across home plate.
Garet Pike then inexplicably got caught in a pickle between third base and home plate, looking like he would become the second out of the inning. While he was being tagged out by Tony Pluta at home, Pluta dropped the ball, allowing Pike to steal a run and stretch Louisville’s lead to 6-3.
Following the madness, Alex Alicea laid down a squeeze bunt that scored Neighbors who was standing on third after the pickle-gone-wrong.
Finally, Matt Klein singled to left field, moving Lucas Moore across the plate before Klein was caught running to second base for the final out of the inning. The run would count. The Cardinals led 8-3, and now it was Arizona whose 2025 season clock was ticking.
Stunned, the Wildcats tried to come back and reclaim the lead, but the shock, and deficit, were just too much. Arizona put two on base but never got farther than that and were sent packing. Louisville now awaits the winner of Game Six between Coastal Carolina and Oregon State.
Players of the Game: LF Zion Rose, 2B Kamau Neighbors – Rose went 1-for-3 with three RBI and one run scored and made an incredible diving catch at the beginning of the game in left field. His one hit was the biggest of his career, a two-RBI single that put the Cardinals ahead for good.
Neighbors had the game of a lifetime, going a perfect 4-for-4 at the plate with one RBI and one run scored. Both his RBI and run scored came in the eighth inning to insulate Louisville’s lead.
Game Six, in the winners bracket, featured Coastal Carolina versus Oregon State, and both teams looked to build on Friday wins to move one step closer to the CWS championship series. Both teams took late leads in their respective wins on Friday, but each did so under very different circumstances.
Coastal Carolina never trailed in Game One of the CWS but found itself in an uncomfortable situation tied with Arizona in the bottom of the eighth inning, 4-4. Coastal rattled off three runs that inning to take a 7-4 lead and slammed the door shut in the ninth, extending its win streak to 24 straight games to advance to the winners’ side of Bracket One.
Oregon State led Game Two all the way until the top of the ninth inning where comeback kids Louisville put up two runs, tying the game at three apiece. Facing extra innings with the resilient Cardinals, Oregon State’s Gavin Turley doubled down the left field line, allowing Aiva Arquette to score all the way from first base and win the game in walk-off fashion.
Sunday night was set to host another great game of baseball, with both teams going to their experienced aces – Jacob Morrison for Coastal and Ethan Kleinschmit for OSU. The perfect matchups to counter each other’s powerful and situationally sound offenses.
Mistakes compiled quickly for Ethan Kleinschmit in the first inning. After Caden Bodine reached first base due to a throwing error by Aiva Arquette, Kleinschmit moved him to second with his first balk of the year.
After striking out Sebastian Alexander, Kleinschmit walked the next two batters, hitting one with a wild pitch, to load the bases with only one out.
Blagen Pado struck out after being found guilty of leaning into a pitch to incite a walk, bringing Colby Thorndyke to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs.
Just as Kleinschmit thought he may get himself out of the jam he put himself in, Thorndyke sent a rocket into deep right-center that snuck past the diving glove of Easton Talt to give him a bases-clearing double.
Kleinschmit caught Dean Mihos looking for his third and final strikeout of the inning, and Oregon State headed to the plate down 3-0 early.
Both teams left runners in scoring position in the second, and the game moved into the third inning with Coastal Carolina still holding the lead.
After a scoreless top half, Easton Talt led the Beavers off with his eighth home run of the season, scorching a ball deep into the right-center bleachers.
The next batter up, Aiva Arquette, nearly sent another over the same exact panel of the outfield wall but came up a couple of feet short, resulting in a jumping grab by Blagen Pado near the top of the wall.
Gavin Turley sent a deep drive of his own into left field the next at-bat, also coming up just short, and the third inning was over with the Beavers now trailing 3-1.
Those bats ignited a fire within Coastal. Dean Mihos and Wells Sykes reached base early in the fourth, bringing Caden Bodine to the plate with one out.
It looked like Bodine would ground into a double play to end the inning, but his grounder moved under AJ Singer’s glove at second base, scoring both Mihos and Sykes, increasing Coastal Carolina’s lead to 5-1.
In the fifth, the scoring continued when Dean Mihos doubled to left-center, allowing Colby Thorndyke to cross the plate and grow the Chanticleers lead to 6-1. Once again Coastal threatened to increase their margin in the sixth inning when a walk of Walker Mitchell loaded the bases with two outs.
Reliever Laif Palmer entered the game to secure a lone out without any additional damage and executed, drawing a line drive from Blagen Pado directly to Easton Talt in right field for the final out of the inning.
Oregon State went three-up, three-down with the top of their lineup in the bottom of the sixth, and hope kept slipping away for OSU.
So far, Jacob Morrison was absolutely dealing for the Chanticleers and simultaneously bleeding life out of the Beavers. Through seven innings pitched, Morrison allowed just three hits and one run, compiling six strikeouts along the way. After allowing the home run in the third inning, he retired 15 batters in a row.
Oregon State finally got back on base, placing runners on the corners with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. This prompted coach Kevin Schnall to finally bring Morrison out of the game and insert Hayden Johnson.
Thereafter, Aiva Arquette hit a fly ball to the right field corner that had a chance to score both runners and make the game interesting, but Blagen Pado made an impressive sliding catch into the wall to end the inning and advance to the ninth.
The Chanticleers offense was quiet after the fourth and fifth innings, and with that, Oregon State was up to bat in the bottom of the ninth still down 6-1 with three outs standing between them and the losers bracket.
Gavin Turley began the inning trying to reach base at first with a bunt, but after that rolled foul down the first base line, he switched gears and blasted a home run over the left field wall and the score was 6-2 Coastal.
OSU, still showing signs of life, put on two of the next four batters to get Hayden Johnson out of the game in favor of Ryan Lynch.
With two outs, Lynch struck out Canon Reeder for the final out of the game, putting the bow on the Chanticleers dominant 6-2 win and extending their win streak to 25.
Coastal earned a spot in Game 11 of the CWS, where they will face the winner of Louisville and Oregon State at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. Oregon State and Louisville will play that game at 1 p.m. on Tuesday.
Player of the Game: RHP Jacob Morrison – Morrison allowed just five hits and one run over seven and two-thirds innings pitched, striking out seven and walking none throughout his action. Credited as the winning pitcher in tonight’s game, he moves to a perfect 12-0 this season.
At the top of this recap, I noted that Louisville was battle-tested, and to survive and advance in search of their first national championship in program history, “the Cardinals would need to draw on their experience to survive and advance.” Louisville did just that, responding to coach McDonnell’s motivational speech in the middle of the sixth inning that reminded the Cardinals just what they were playing for, and how limited their opportunity was.
Arizona is likely still wondering how things went so south, so quickly in a game that they were in control of for nearly the entire game prior to that dreaded eighth inning. Couple that with the fact that it happened against the nation’s top closing pitcher, and it becomes all the more puzzling. The Wildcats end the 2025 campaign 44-21 and are the first team eliminated from the College World Series.
Jacob Morrison and the rest of the Chanticleers pitching staff shined on Sunday night. Combined, they allowed seven hits and just two runs with 10 total strikeouts, effectively subduing Oregon State’s explosive offense. Coastal Carolina entered the CWS as the hottest team in the country, and through two games, they have shown no signs of cooling off. In Kevin Schnall’s first season leading the team, he has them one game away from the championship series of the CWS.
Aside from the disastrous start in the first inning for Oregon State, the Beavers played well enough to win this game. OSU outhit Coastal 7-to-5 and played good defense, committing just two errors throughout the game. Those errors proved to be costly, accounting for four unearned runs in a loss of the same margin. While the path becomes tougher for the Beavers, they are still more than capable of fighting back to make it to the championship series. Oregon State still boasts one of the best offenses remaining in this CWS and can use that against Louisville on Tuesday to stay alive.
We have not seen one bad day of baseball through three days of the 75th College World Series, and today’s action was for the dads. Day three brought more late-game heroics that led to a dramatic come-from-behind victory in the first game of the day, followed by another dominant pitching performance in primetime. After all that, I’m thrilled to say we have another full day of The Greatest Show on Dirt ahead of us tomorrow.
Tomorrow begins with an elimination game between Arkansas and Murray State at 1 p.m. followed by the winners bracket game at 6 p.m. between LSU and UCLA.
