Rowe, Rupp homer in bottom of ninth inning to lead Texas past Arizona State 4-3

Texas powers past Arizona St. in 9th inning

OMAHA, Neb. — Connor Rowe hit a game-winning solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, moments after Cameron Rupp tied it with a homer of his own as Texas came from behind to beat Arizona State 4-3 in the College World Series on Friday night.

Rowe sent a shot into the left-field seats, then sprinted around the bases with his helmet raised in his right hand as his celebrating teammates waited at home plate to greet him.

Two batters earlier, Rupp homered over the 22-foot wall in straightaway center field to tie it.

Texas (49-14-1) advanced to the CWS best-of-three finals starting Monday against LSU. The Longhorns will try to become the first No. 1 national seed to win the title since Miami in 1999.

Rowe, who batted in the No. 9 spot, hit the first walkoff homer in Omaha since Texas’ Chance Wheeless did it in a win over Baylor in 2005.

It looked as if the Sun Devils (51-14) would force a Saturday rematch for the Bracket 2 championship after they took a 3-2 lead in the top of the ninth on Zach Wilson’s RBI triple.

Mitchell Lambson (9-5) struck out Brandon Loy to start the bottom of the ninth, but Rupp tied it with a homer that carried at least 420 feet, one of the longest in recent CWS memory.

After Preston Clark popped out, Rowe hit the first offering from Lambson over the left-field wall, well above the leaping Kole Calhoun.

Austin Wood (6-1) got the win after throwing three innings in relief of starter Cole Green. But it didn’t look so good for Wood in the top of the ninth.

The senior struck out four of the first six batters he faced before Jason Kipnis battled through an 11-pitch at-bat. Kipnis’ hard shot got past first baseman Brandon Belt, but second baseman Travis Tucker came up with the ball and threw wildly to Wood, who was covering first. Kipnis took off for second as Rupp, the catcher, scrambled for the ball next to the top step of the ASU dugout.

Clark got a bad break on Carlos Ramirez’s hard line, but made a nice recovery to catch it. Wood then struck out ASU’s hottest hitter, Calhoun, before Wilson hooked a 1-0 pitch into the right-field corner past a diving Kevin Keyes to score Kipnis. It was Wilson’s first RBI since May 10.

Starters Mike Leake of Arizona State and Texas’ Green each went six innings, giving up two runs on eight hits, before turning the game over to the bullpen with the score tied at 2.

Lambson allowed Calhoun’s single leading off the seventh, then retired six in a row before his disastrous ninth inning.

Texas returns to the CWS finals for the first time since 2005, when the Longhorns won the last of their six national championships.