Jared Oliva homered for the first time in over two months and JC Cloney pitched seven strong innings, leading Arizona to a 3-0 victory over UC Santa Barbara in a College World Series elimination game Wednesday night.
The Wildcats (46-22) will play Oklahoma State on Friday in the Bracket 1 final. They need to win that game and another Saturday against the Cowboys to reach next week’s best-of-three finals.
The Gauchos (43-20-1) went 1-2 in their first CWS appearance.
Cloney (7-4) gave up only five singles before turning the game over to Cameron Ming with a runner on base and no outs in the eighth.
The Gauchos threatened in the ninth after Clay Fisher doubled and Devon Gradford walked with no outs. Ming struck out Austin Bush, JJ Muno and Dempsey Grover to end the game.
Arizona has allowed only two runs in three CWS games.
