Arizona baseball took advantage of three errors to claim an 11-7 victory over Kansas State Sunday afternoon at Hi Corbett Field, preventing the Wildcats from securing the series sweep.

“We had our opportunities to win that game,” eighth-year head coach Pete Hughes said in a statement. “I thought we did enough offensively, and we came on strong late, but wasn’t enough. We had enough defensive miscues to create some opportunities for Arizona, and that turned out to be the difference of the game.”

After falling behind 4-2 following K-State’s (25-15, 9-9 Big 12) four-run third inning, highlighted by a two-run blast from Nick English, Arizona (15-24, 6-12 Big 12) answered and scored in each of the final five innings.

Arizona scored a pair of runs over the first two innings, highlighted by a solo blast from TJ Adams.

Chandler Murray singled through the left side to lead off the third before advancing to third on a double from Grant Gallagher. Murray came across the plate on a chopper to short by Shea McGahan, trimming the deficit to one.

K-State took capitalized on a balk call that plated the tying run. With two outs, Nick English launched his fifth home run of the season 417-feet to center field, handing the Wildcats a 4-2 lead.

Maddox Mihalakis pulled the game within one with a solo homer to center in the fourth.

Tazwell Butler relieved starter Robert Fortenberry in the fifth and inherited runners on first and second with no outs. Arizona took advantage of a fielding error to take back the lead, 5-4. Butler struck the final batter to leave runners stranded on first and second and keep the game within one.

Arizona expanded its lead, scoring four runs over a two-inning span.

Trailing 9-4, back-to-back hits from Dee Kennedy and English forced Arizona to make its second call to the pen, replacing Collin McKinney, who tossed four innings of two-hit ball in relief of starter Luc Fladda.

Catcher Bear Madliak welcomed reliever Maclain Roberts to the game with a three-run blast to opposite field to trim the gap to two. After allowing a single down the left field line from Shintaro Inoue, Arizona brought in closer Garrett Hicks.

The right-hander retired five of the seven batters he faced to finish off his sixth save of the season.

Up next

The Wildcats face Grand Canyon (14-25, 6-9 Mountain West) Tuesday at 3 p.m. CT at Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark. Tuesday’s contest can be seen on the Mountain West Network.