Defending champ Arizona out of Women’s College World Series

OKLAHOMA CITY—Brittany Rogers had the go-ahead bloop double in a four-run sixth inning and Alabama eliminated two-time defending champion Arizona with a 5-1 win Saturday at the Women’s College World Series.

Charlotte Morgan homered and drove in three runs for Alabama, which faced another elimination game Saturday night against Louisiana-Lafayette.

Earlier Saturday, top-seeded Florida (68-4) broke the NCAA record for wins in a season with a 2-0 victory against Virginia Tech and Angela Tincher, the national player of the year, in nine innings.

Florida was to face second-seeded UCLA in another elimination game Saturday night.

Rogers’ looping liner landed just beyond the outstretched glove of diving shortstop K’Lee Arredondo and spun away from left-fielder Brittany Lastrapes to allow Ashley Holcombe to score from second. Alabama then added three more runs against Taryne Mowatt (29-15), the Arizona ace who’d been wild but effective over the first five innings.

Morgan added a two-run single and Kelley Montalvo had an RBI double as the nation’s highest-scoring offense came through while Kelsi Dunne (26-5) kept Arizona from adding to its NCAA-best home run total.

“We’ve been talking ever since Friday night about something is going to work for us, something is going to start falling for us, and we just have to keep believing and keep trusting in each other and working as hard as you can,” Rogers said.

“You can’t control everything on that field. We can control our attitude. That’s something we worked on, and it happened.”

Mowatt was the star of Arizona’s gritty run to the championship last season, throwing more than 1,000 pitches in a World Series record 60 innings as the Wildcats won five games while facing elimination.

“This year, the luck was not on our side,” Mowatt said. “Alabama got the key hit when they needed it, they had balls falling in where nobody was, and that’s basically what happened.”

Stacie Chambers drove in the Wildcats’ only run with an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth, tying the game after Morgan’s solo homer in the top of the inning.

“As a senior, it’s something that you totally just don’t expect,” Arizona catcher Callista Balko said. “We came in here not expecting to be done with in two games.”

Sun Devils moving on

Lesley Rogers and Krista Donnenwirth each had an RBI single to cash in after UCLA intentionally walked Kaitlin Cochran as Arizona State took down the Bruins 4-0 on Friday.

Arizona State coach Clint Myers moved Cochran into the leadoff spot after Alabama walked her in all three plate appearances a night earlier, the final one leading to the Sun Devils’ winning rally. That didn’t stop the Bruins (51-8), who have won more World Series titles than anyone else, from trying the same strategy.

Anjelica Selden (29-4) got out of a bases-loaded jam after walking Cochran — a .448 hitter — in the first inning, but the next two intentional passes led to Cochran scoring.

An additional run scored when center fielder Katie Schroeder misplayed Rogers’ RBI single in the third inning, and two runs also came in on Donnenwirth’s single in the fifth inning — the second when the Bruins tried to catch Donnenwirth advancing to second and botched the play.

Katie Burkhart (38-5) threw a four-hit shutout for Arizona State.