 "Photo: Paul Chouy/The Daily Texan")
OMAHA, Neb. — The ball launched in a straight line, exploding off of his bat.
It soared over the giant green wall in dead center field. Cameron Rupp’s ninth-inning, game-tying home run was crushed — it may still be flying across the Nebraska plains.
“Talk about it?” said Texas closer Austin Wood, when Rupp was asked about his homer. “That ball is still going.”
Rupp’s ninth-inning Herculean heroics and third homer of the College World Series was trumped by a much shorter shot.
Two batters later, before Rosenblatt Stadium and the Texas dugout had the chance to calm down, even before Rupp’s monster shot had landed, sophomore center fielder Connor Rowe would reignite the frenzy and secure Texas a showdown with LSU in the College World Series Championship series with a walk-off home run Friday to drop Arizona State 4-3.
Although both balls cleared the fence, the two game-changing homers were quite different. Rupp’s — a 440 foot monster blast to straight-away center — tied the game, but it took Rowe’s hit — a paltry 340-foot ball that barely cleared the fence in left — to cap yet another epic comeback win against the Sun Devils.
The walk-off homer was enough for Texas to overcome another sloppy game in Omaha. Texas committed three errors.
“I had no idea how, but I knew when I hit it that we were going to win it,” Rupp said. “We have done it all year. We battled.”
Rupp thought the win was coming in extra innings, because with two outs in the bottom of the ninth he was preparing to play the tenth, reaching down to buckle on one of his shin guards.
“I was getting ready to go, and I start to put on my shin guard, and as I buckled the first strap I picked my head up to catch the light of the ball flashing past,” Rupp said. “I knew it. I quit buckling it, I dropped it all.”
By the time Rupp had freed himself of his catcher’s gear, the rest of the team was preparing to mob Rowe at home.
“I was the last one out there,” Rupp said.
Texas continually responded on Friday night, as they have all season. When Arizona State scored a run in the top of the third, the Longhorns responded with a run of their own — a Michael Torres solo shot into the right-center bleachers. It was Torres’ sixth homer of the season, three of which have come in the NCAA tournament.
The Sun Devils would burn Texas starter Cole Green for another run in the fourth, but the Longhorns would match it in the fifth.
The strong, and nearly identical, pitching performances of Green — six innings pitched, eight hits, two runs and six strikeouts — and Arizona State’s ace Mike Leake — six innings, eight hits, two runs and seven strikeouts — had the two teams knotted up.
With the team’s two closers, Mitchell Lambson and Wood in the game, it stayed tied. Until Sun Devil center fielder Jason Kipnis reached on an infield single and took second on a throwing error from Travis Tucker after the hard-hit grounder bounced off first baseman Brandon Belt’s glove.
Wood battled back to strike out Kole Calhoun — the only time the hot-hitting redhead didn’t reach base Friday — but pinch hitter Zach Wilson, who had only three extra base hits all season, roped a triple down the right-field line to drive in Kipnis and put ASU ahead 3-2.
“We have picked each other up all season,” Rupp said. “That is what we do.”
The two Texas long balls would erase another Sun Devil lead and give closer Wood his sixth win of the season. In three innings, Wood allowed three hits and one run with two strikeouts.
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