Four days ago, the University of Louisville baseball team was walked off by Oregon State in the opening round of the College World Series. The Cardinals flipped the script on Tuesday, walking off the Beavers for a 7-6 win to extend the season another day.
Louisville (42-23) is now one of the last four teams standing as it heads into the bracket final to take on Coastal Carolina. The Cardinals will need to defeat Coastal Carolina twice with the first opportunity coming on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET.
Tuesday’s win sends Louisville into the bracket final for just the second time in program history. The Cardinals also reached the bracket final in 2019 before losing to Vanderbilt.
Louisville scored in the opening inning on Tuesday and led the entire day. Eddie King Jr. put the Cards in front with a RBI single in the first, and Jake Munroe made it a 3-0 game with a two-run homer two innings later.
Oregon State (48-16-1) responded with a two-run blast of its own in the fourth, but Zion Rose led off the Louisville half of the inning with his 13th of the year to push the margin back out to two.
The Beavers threatened again in the sixth, loading the bases with nobody out. However, Justin West was able to buckle down and limited the damage to just one run to keep the Cards on top.
Louisville answered back with two outs in the bottom half. Garret Pike came off the bench and hit a double into the gap before scoring on a single to right by Kamau Neighbors.
One inning later, King stretched the advantage back out to three with a sac fly that made it 6-3 in Louisville’s favor.
After a scoreless eighth on both sides, the Cardinals took the three-run edge into the final inning.
Oregon State wouldn’t go quietly though. The Beavers got a leadoff homer to cut the margin to two and then loaded the bases on a walk and two singles.
A misplay on the infield then allowed the tying runs to score, and Oregon State then had the go-ahead runs on second and third with still nobody out.
Tucker Biven went to work from there. The right-hander, who had just thrown four shutout innings on Sunday, struck out back-to-back hitters and got a soft pop up to first to keep the game tied and put the momentum back in the Louisville dugout.
In the bottom of the ninth, Alex Alicea worked a leadoff walk and Lucas Moore reached on a catcher’s interference. Matt Klein then laid down a sacrifice bunt that was mishandled by the pitcher, loading the bases with nobody out.
Oregon State got a strikeout for the first out, but King stepped to the plate and delivered as he has all postseason, sending a flyball to centerfield that was plenty deep enough to allow Alicea to race home and dive across the plate for the winning run.
The walk-off victory was the sixth of the season for the Cardinals.
King finished the day 2-for-3 at the plate and drove in three of the seven Louisville runs.
Biven (5-0) earned his second consecutive victory with his work in the ninth. Brennyn Cutts got the start on Tuesday for the Cardinals, setting a season high with seven strikeouts in three-plus innings. Justin West also worked three innings, allowing just one run.
Jack Brown and Jake Schweitzer also had scoreless innings out of the bullpen.
