Big 12 Baseball Tournament: Back-to-back homers, Owen Kramkowski lead Arizona past BYU in quarterfinals

Arizona made its debut at the Big 12 Tournament so early that most fans back home were either still asleep or waiting for the coffee to kick in. So Mason White and Adonys Guzman provided their own wake-up call.

Back-to-back solo home runs by White and Guzman in the bottom of the 1st inning, off opposite foul poles, ended up being all the scoring the Wildcats needed in a 4-1 win over BYU in the quarterfinals Friday morning at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

Owen Kramkowski was stellar on the mound, throwing six shutout innings while tying his career high with eight strikeouts. He walked one and allowed four hits from the same mound where, on opening weekend, he made his first career start and was yanked before the 1^st inning ended after allowing seven runs.

Fourth-seeded Arizona (37-18) will play either No. 1 West Virginia or No. 8 Cincinnati in Friday’s 2 p.m. PT semifinal. The UA took two of three from the Mountaineers in Morgantown and swept the Bearcats at home, both in March.

White’s homer, the 14^th this season and 43^rd of his career to tie Brad Glenn for second in school history, banged high off the right field foul pole. Two pitches later, Guzman clanged his 7^th homer off the foul pole in left. Both balls likely would have been foul at Hi Corbett Field.

That looked like it was more than enough with the way Kramkowski was pitching. The sophomore only went to a 3-ball count on one batter, getting most of his strikeouts on the slider and ending three of six innings with a punchout.

An RBI single in the bottom of the 5^th by Maddox Mihalakis, who was 2 for 4, brought in White to make it 3-0 after White led off the inning with a triple. White is up to 103 extra base hits for his career, tied with Glenn for second on the UA list.

No. 12 BYU (28-27) got its lone run in the top of the 8^th. Garrett Hicks, who threw a scoreless 7^th, put the first two on and left for Tony Pluta, who after allowing a run-scoring single retired six in a row to pick up his 12^th save. That’s one behind Jason Stoffel’s single-season school record set in 2008.

Arizona added an insurance run in the bottom of the 8^th on the first career RBI for Dom Rodriguez, who pinch hit for Andrew Cain and doubled home Mihalakis.