PHOENIX (AP) Tony Womack turned disaster into delirium, and sent Curt Schilling and the Arizona Diamondbacks to the NL championship series.

Womack failed to get down a suicide-squeeze bunt, then singled home the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Diamondbacks over the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 last night in the deciding Game 5 of their division series.

In an awesome encore, Schilling won his second duel with Matt Morris in five days. Schilling allowed six hits, struck out nine and walked one in his third consecutive postseason complete game.

The Diamondbacks will begin their first NLCS at home on Tuesday against the Atlanta Braves.

Reggie Sanders" 447-foot home run off Morris put Arizona up 1-0 in the fourth inning. J.D. Drew"s two-out homer off Schilling tied it at 1 in the eighth.

Schilling, still throwing 98 mph, struck out Edgar Renteria and Mike Matheny with a runner on second in the St. Louis ninth, then the drama really began.

Dave Veres relieved Morris to begin the inning and Matt Williams, brutalized by boos from the home crowd and hitless in 15 at-bats in the series, narrowly missed a home run to right field with a double off the bullpen fence.

Damian Miller"s sacrifice bunt advanced pinch-runner Midre Cummings to third. Steve Kline relieved, and intentionally walked pinch-hitter Greg Colbrunn to put runners on first and third with one out.

Arizona manager Bob Brenly, who had used the suicide squeeze several times this season, called for it from Womack. But he couldn"t make contact with a breaking ball in the dirt, and Cummings was tagged out easily.

Colbrunn moved to second on the play, and Danny Bautista replaced him as a pinch-runner.

Four pitches later, Womack slapped a single to left field. Kerry Robinson fielded the ball cleanly and made a strong throw to the plate, but had no chance to get Bautista.

New York Yankees 9, Oakland 2 The New York Yankees calmly boarded a plane yesterday night for another cross-country flight to another playoff showdown.

For any other baseball team, it would have been a thrilling journey to a game almost nobody thought would be played.

But these are the Yankees. There is no postseason territory over which they haven"t soared before.

Bernie Williams drove in five runs as the Yankees tied their AL division series with the Oakland Athletics at two games each with a 9-2 victory.

Playing with poise and pride on the brink of postseason elimination, Williams and New York finished two days in Oakland with two wins and afterward, nobody in a New York uniform would admit to even an ounce of surprise.

"We were all aware of the situation," Williams said. "There was no sense in rubbing it in. We knew we were down two games to one, and it was a must-win situation ... but you don"t want to be pins and needles out there."

Seattle 6, Cleveland 2: Nine outs away from having all those wins and records overshadowed by failure, the Seattle Mariners simply wouldn"t let their special season end.

They didn"t panic. Instead, they did whatever it took.

And won again.

Rookie Ichiro Suzuki provided the key hit and the Mariners staved off an early postseason exit yesterday with a 6-2 win over the Cleveland Indians to force a decisive Game 5 back in Seattle.

"It was down to nine outs," outfielder Mike Cameron said. "There was no tension. It was just a matter of swinging the bats, and waiting for that one break."