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Postseason baseball is here, and Arizona was ready for its wakeup call Thursday.

Stellar pitching and an unusual home run sequence sent the Wildcats into the semifinals of the Big 12 Baseball Championship.

Owen Kramkowski threw six scoreless innings, Tony Pluta notched a six-out save and two Cats hit back-to-back solo homers off each foul pole as No. 4 seed UA defeated No. 12 seed BYU 4-1 in the first quarterfinal at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

The homers came off the bats of Mason White and Adonys Guzman in the first inning. They’d prove to be enough offense for Arizona, whose staff held the opposition to one run for the second straight game after a rough stretch at the end of the regular season.

“Playing a 9 a.m. game is always a challenge for young college kids and old coaches like myself,� Hale told reporters afterward. “But I thought our guys came out and played a beautiful baseball game. Obviously, our offense was powered on Mason and Adonys’ home runs. But I thought we pitched extremely well and played great defense today. Makes you proud. I think the guys the last three days ... really prepared to play that early game.�

Arizona will face No. 1 seed West Virginia in the semifinals at 2 p.m. Friday. The Mountaineers defeated No. 8 seed Cincinnati 10-3 in the second quarterfinal Thursday.

The Wildcats had no trouble dealing with their early start time Thursday — 9 a.m. in Texas, 7 a.m. in Arizona. White, the third batter of the game, yanked a home run off the right field foul pole. Two pitches later, Guzman did the same thing, clanging a homer off the left field pole.

ESPN+ announcers Keith Moreland and Greg Swindell, two longtime major-leaguers, said they’d never seen that before in a baseball game. Hale concurred during an in-game interview.

White’s homer was the 43rd of his career, tying him with Brad Glenn for No. 2 on Arizona’s all-time leaderboard. White later tripled, giving him 103 career extra-base hits, also tied with Glenn for second in UA annals.

Arizona’s bats were mostly quiet after the “pole-to-pole� homers, but it didn’t matter; the UA pitching staff kept BYU at bay.

Kramkowski, the sophomore from Walden Grove High School, registered his first quality start since April 26 at Texas Tech. Kramkowski allowed four hits while walking one batter and striking out a career-high-tying eight. The performance was a stark contrast to his last appearance at Globe Life when he allowed seven runs in two-thirds of an inning on Feb. 15 vs. Clemson.

Asked what was different this time, Kramkowski said: “I think just going into it realizing that every game, no matter what, I'm just playing baseball on a baseball field. Every game is going to be different. I'm going to have those outings. So just realizing that's going to happen and that next game was next game and just worry about the pitch that's at hand.�

Kramkowski received the honor of placing the Arizona sticker on the Big 12 bracket board. He did so with a ring of bananas around his cap as the Wildcats have reprised their signature rally produce from last season.

Maddox Mihalakis gave Arizona a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth when he drove in White. The score remained 3-0 entering the top of the eighth, when BYU mounted its biggest threat.

Reliever Garrett Hicks, who had pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, yielded a leadoff double, a wild pitch and a walk, putting runners on first and third with no outs. Arizona summoned closer Pluta, who yielded an RBI single to Ryder Robinson to shrink Arizona’s lead to 3-1.

That would be the only hit Pluta would allow. He retired the next three batters on a fielder’s choice, a strikeout and a groundout. He pitched a perfect ninth to earn his league-leading 12th save, second most in a single season in UA history.

Pluta had a slightly bigger cushion in the ninth thanks to pinch hitter Dom Rodriguez’s RBI double that drove in Mihalakis in the bottom of the eighth.

Inside pitch

– Sophomore Easton Breyfogle, who started at DH, went 2 for 3 to extend his hitting streak to six games and his on-base streak to eight games.

– Arizona has allowed two runs in its last two games. The Wildcats yielded at least five in each of their previous seven contests.

– Arizona had been 4-11 before Thursday when scoring four or fewer runs.

– The Wildcats have advanced to the semifinals in all four conference tournaments in which they’ve played.

– Arizona took two of three from West Virginia in Morgantown on March 21-23. Guzman hit two home runs in the series finale, an 11-4 UA victory.