PALO ALTO, Calif. - A big gamble backfired on the University of Nevada Friday afternoon on the opening day of the NCAA Baseball Regionals.
Jeremy Brown was walked intentionally to load the bases for Ben King, a freshman designated hitter and the No. 7 hitter in Alabama's lineup. King made the Wolf Pack pay when he drilled a grand slam to break up a close struggle and put the Crimson Tide (39-22) on track to a 8-2 victory at Stanford's Sunken Diamond.
Alabama (39-22) scored three runs in the fifth inning and four more runs in the sixth to come from behind and win a game that took one hour, 59 minutes to play.
And Nevada (37-18) again finds itself in a position of having to play catchup. The Wolf Pack won seven straight and 16 of 19 games at the end of the regular season to earn the NCAA invitation. Now, Nevada faces a die-or-die situation in the regional today when it plays Fresno State at 11 a.m. in an elimination game. Darrell Rasner, a freshman from Carson City, is expected to start on the mound for Nevada.
Alabama plays Stanford in the winners bracket contest today at 3 p.m.
The Crimson Tide was leading 3-2 before King delivered his game-breaking homer with one out in the sixth. Sam Bozanich singled to lead off the inning and then Aaron Clark's fly ball fell for a two-base error - the only defensive miscue by either side - when Nevada's outfielders collided in left-center. Brown, whose fifth inning homer had given Alabama its first run, was given the intentional pass to load the bases and set the stage for King, who hit hit an 0-1 pitch for his 13th home run of the season.
Nevada had broken up a scoreless duel between Chad Qualls and Alabama's Scott Murphy in the fourth inning on a Ryan Church home run. Murphy had retired the first 10 batters he faced, but after Joe Inglett flied out to the fence in left field, Church hit a drive over the center field fence for his 14th home run of the season.
The Wolf Pack extended its lead to 2-0 in the fifth when Jarell McIntyre hit a two-out double off the right fence and scored on Joey Herrera's bloop single into left field.
Alabama answered with two bombs of its own in the bottom half of the inning to take a 3-2 lead. Jeremy Brown, a preseason All-America selection, homered over the left field fence to lead off the inning. Then after Casey Lambert singled, Darren Wood hit his seventh homer of the season, a shot to left field.
Murphy (8-2) allowed six hits, walked none and threw just under 80 pitches to pick up his fifth complete-game victory of the season.
Qualls (11-4) allowed eight runs on 12 hits in completing his seventh game of the year. He struck out four and walked one.