Arizona baseball walks off San Diego to move to .500

Walk-offs were a core theme of Arizona baseball’s 2024 season that culminated in a Pac-12 championship.

Three games into Arizona’s first homestead of 2025, walk-offs are back with a vengeance.

Arizona’s Aaron Walton delivered a game winning single in the bottom of the ninth Saturday as the Wildcats held on to 5-4 victory over San Diego to move to .500 on the year (3-3).

Arizona led 4-1 entering the ninth, but reliever Julian Tonghini couldn’t close the door. Down to their last out, the Toreros rallied for three runs to tie the contest by capitalizing on a hit batter and walk.

Arizona’s Mathis Meurant, who earlier in the game belted a solo home run, led off the bottom of the ninth with a leadoff single. Brendan Summerhill advanced Meurant to third on a base hit, setting up the walk-off swing by Walton.

“It felt a little bit reminiscent of last year where we’d kind of lose a lead at the end and battle back and win it in the bottom of the ninth, which is a great sign,” said UA coach Chip Hale. “It’s always good to do those type of things.”

The walk-off was technically Arizona’s second of the homestead; UA walked off New Mexico Tuesday by way of run rule in a 10-0 victory. Arizona also run ruled San Diego Friday 11-0 in the series opener.

Saturday’s game would feature no such prolific scoring.

San Diego jumped out to an early 1-0 lead off Arizona starter Owen Kramkowski. who was coming off a dreadful opening start last week versus Clemson in which he couldn’t make it out of the first inning.

This time around, Kramkowski recovered after conceding a two-out RBI single, getting the next batter to pop out.

Kramkowski settled in from there, throwing four scoreless frames. He finished the day with three strikeouts on four hits and one earned run across five innings.

“It feels amazing,” Kramkowsi said. “It gets the confidence back, it gets the team going.”

San Diego starter Logan Reddemann kept Arizona’s bats stifled until Tommy Splaine led off the third inning with a double. Summerhill drove him in on a fielding error by San Diego’s second baseman.

Arizona had the bases loaded with just one out but Reddemann got Mason White to strike out and Garen Caulfield to pop out to end the scare.

Meurant gave Arizona the lead in the fifth with a homer to center, the Frenchman’s first home run in a Wildcats uniform. Meurant, who also put down a sacrifice bunt and drew a walk, accounted for three of Arizona’s five runs.

“Unbelievable game,” Hale said. “Everything he did was good.”

Arizona plated a run in the sixth on a Splaine sac fly and and added to its lead in the seventh on a White double.

Arizona got strong relief outings from Tony Pluta and Hunter Albertini, and Tonghini appeared to be on his way to a save until he ran into trouble in the ninth.

“Obviously Tonghini struggled but his stuff was good, good enough to get guys out,” said Hale. “Other than that I thought the bullpen was fantastic.

“(Tonghini) will do better. He’s way too much of a veteran guy with good enough stuff.”

With runners on the corners for the Toreros, Hale turned to Garrett Hicks, who promptly recorded a pop out to evade any further damage.

Arizona baseball has become synonymous with walk-offs under Hale, with the 2024 team producing eight walk-off wins. Hale wouldn’t mind less dramatics this season.

“We gotta learn how to shut ‘em down in the ninth inning,” said Hale. “We gotta do a better job of that.”

Arizona will go for the sweep Sunday when it takes on San Diego at noon MST. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.

Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics