Big 12 Baseball Tournament: Arizona blows out regular season champ West Virginia to reach title game

Third straight conference tourney final for Wildcats

If Mason White gets drafted by the Texas Rangers this summer, this weekend might be why.

The junior shortstop hit two home runs, including a 3-run shot, driving in six in Arizona’s 12-1 win over top-seeded West Virginia in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals on Friday afternoon. He has three homers in two games in the tourney at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, where he also homered twice during the opening weekend of the season.

Raul Garayzar threw six shutout innings for No. 4 seed Arizona (38-18), which will play in a conference tournament title game for the third year in a row, facing either No. 2 Kansas or No. 3 TCU at 4 p.m. PT Saturday. The Wildcats shut out the Jayhawks (43-14) in a nonconference game in March and took two of three from the Horned Frogs (38-17) earlier this month.

White, who has six homers in May after hitting nine through the first 44 games, smacked a solo shot to the opposite field in the top of the 1^st. He came up with two on and no out in the 5^th, after Brendan Summerhill reached on a bunt and Aaron Walton singled to left, and crushed the final pitch from West Virginia starter Jack Kartsonas to right-center for a 5-0 lead.

But other than White’s 3-run blast, most of Arizona’s damage came with two outs, as the Wildcats were 9 of 17 in that situation. They added two more in the 6^th on a pair of 2-out hits including one by Adonys Guzman, who had three hits and three RBI. In four games against West Virginia he has eight hits with two homers and five RBI.

A 2-out, 2-run double by Walton in the 7^th made it 9-0, then White doubled him home, and in the 9^th added a run-scoring single. White was 4 for 4 with two walks and is 6 for 7 in the Big 12 Tournament.

Garayzar, making his second weekend start, lowered his ERA as a starter to 0.75 over 24 innings. He allowed six hits and walked two with three strikeouts and was aided mightily by his defense, which turned double plays in the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th innings after West Virginia got leadoff singles. The first two were started by first baseman Tommy Splaine.

Julian Tonghini allowed a run in the bottom of the 7^th, preventing Arizona from winning by mercy rule, then Collin McKinney threw the final two frames in his first appearance since getting taken out of the starting rotation.

The UA will try to win the Big 12 tournament title in its first season after taking the final Pac-12 tourney championship a year ago. The Wildcats are 10-4 in conference tourney games under Chip Hale.