Arizona had been kept off the scoreboard all night, despite getting several opportunities.

“We always, you know, blame or wanna point the finger at the hitters,” Arizona head coach Chip Hale said. “Let's get some credit to their pitchers and I think Kirk does a great job of calling pitches, he did a wonderful job in situations and sort of preyed on our aggressiveness and threw some offspeed stuff that was really well located.” 

Nate Stern and Gianluca Shinn combined for their first five scoreless innings, putting just eight runners on base. Shinn struck out seven of the nine batters he faced.

Braeden Sloan kept Arizona off the scoreboard as well for his first three innings, walking the wire in the sixth and eighth innings but keeping everything in his control. 

“He’s done it all year and, you know, we’re a little depleted down there,” TCU head coach Kirk Saarloos said. “Sloan has been in that position more than anybody on a roster and felt like he navigated a lot of different situations and pitched out of those situations.”

The Wildcats went 0-7 with runners in scoring position entering the ninth inning. Then, to lead off, Andrew Cain sent a game-tying solo shot into the right field bleachers, stunning the TCU crowd.

“Just a change up a little up in the zone and I sat back on it and took a good swing at it,” Cain said.

Arizona’s pitching, as strong as it was Saturday night, played a huge role in keeping the Wildcats in the game until their offense woke up late.

Smith Bailey started the game for the Wildcats, putting together 5 ⅓ innings, allowing just a single run in the first inning. He surrendered just four hits and a walk, punching out five.

“I think I needed to mature and grow up, and I think I did a good job of that. It was great that I started off the year throwing in this stadium. I just tried to do the same things I did a couple of months ago, just try to come out here and throw. Stopped worrying about the stuff that doesn’t matter especially in a game like this because the goal is to win. I came out and trusted my preparation and just performed as best I could,” Bailey said.

Bailey was followed by Casey Hintz, who got his first two outs on a huge double play to end the sixth inning. Hintz and Garrett Hicks combined for 2 2/3 scoreless innings. 

Tony Pluta finished out the game, pitching the final scoreless two innings of the game while striking out three hitters.

It was Arizona’s second year in a row winning their conference tournament, winning the Pac-12 last year in walk-off fashion. 

Another similarity to last season was Mason White dominating. Despite only collecting a single hit today, he got on via hit-by-pitch and was the winning run. He finished this tournament going 8-12, hitting three homers. 

“I won the Pac-12 last year, we were the one seed coming into that game and Chip told me before, just show the conference who you are. But I went into that tournament just letting it fly and trying to do as much as I could to help us win. So coming here, I’ve been in this spot before where it’s the end of the year and we’re competing to host again, and so I was just letting it fly and having fun in a neutral setting,” White said. 

Arizona will look to see where they will end up for their regional. Hale believes that winning the Big 12 should be a big deal in the eyes of the committee. 

“I think that you know, if you look at all the different quad wins and all these things they look at, we’re in pretty good shape," Hale said. “But that’s not up to us, and if we get to host again, we’ll play better than we did last year, I know that.” If we have to go on the road, we’ll go and we’ll play whoever we have to play, you gotta eat everybody anyway.”

Saarloos is also optimistic about TCU hosting a regional, citing that many projections had TCU hosting before the tournament and didn’t see how losing in the conference championship against another host-quality team in a tough game would hurt that.