Washington baseball upsets No. 16 Arizona to even series

The Washington Huskies pulled off an upset of the No. 16 Arizona Wildcats on Saturday.

The Washington Huskies managed to even their season series with the No. 16 Arizona Wildcats on Saturday, as coach Jason Kelly’s team pulled off a 4-3 upset inside Husky Ballpark on Saturday afternoon.

First baseman Jeter Ybarra opened the scoring with an RBI single in the first inning, but Arizona’s third baseman Maddox Mihalakis answered with a run-scoring single of his own in the top of the second inning as part of a perfect day where he reached base four times, going 3 for 3 with a walk.

Arizona took a 3-1 lead in the fourth inning but the Huskies answered back with two runs of their own to tie the game thanks to an error by Mihalakis which extended the frame. Second baseman Aiva Arquette’s RBI single knotted the game at 3-3 before shortstop Cam Clayton’s RBI double put the Huskies ahead for good in the fifth.

Calvin Kirchoff earned the win for the Huskies, his third of the season, working 5 2/3 innings allowing 7 hits, 3 earned runs, and 2 walks while striking out 5 batters. Clark Candiotti took just his second loss of the year for the Wildcats after going 5 innings and letting up 7 hits, 4 runs (2 earned), 2 walks against 6 strikeouts.

Grant Cunningham closed out the ballgame to earn his first save of the year, working the final 1 1/3 inning and allowing just 1 hit.

The win pushes the Huskies up to 15-20-1 on the season and 7-13 against Pac-12 opponents, while the Wildcats fell to 26-15 and 14-6 against conference foes this season. The two teams will begin the rubber match of their three-game series on Sunday afternoon at 1:05.