Nine runs allowed in the final four frames sinks ASU baseball as the Sun Devils’ bats are silenced in game two loss to UNC Wilmington.
After being held scoreless for the first five innings of the game, UNC Wilmington scored nine runs in the final four frames to bury ASU 9-0 Saturday night from Phoenix Municipal Stadium.
A solid start from Eli Lingos was quickly erased in the eighth inning by the four-man relief crew of Connor Higgins, Spencer Van Scoyoc, Ryan Hingst and Grant Schneider.
The four allowed four runs to score in the eighth inning to put the game out of reach for the Sun Devils.
In particular, talented left-handed arms Connor Higgins and Spencer Van Scoyoc could only record one out combined as the two were responsible for all four runs that crossed the board in the inning.
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“At some point, it’s got to happen,” Head Coach Tracy Smith said in regard to Higgins and Van Scoyoc. “We can’t keep asking the same five guys to do it.”
Even when the game was already out of reach by the ninth inning, UNC Wilmington tacked on two more runs on a bases clearing double from freshman shortstop Greg Jones.
Six Seahawks had two hits on the night as UNC Wilmington also pounced on the control issues of ASU’s pitching staff with five walks in the final three innings.
Nine innings of shutout baseball from UNC Wilmington’s Zarion Sharpe and Austin Easter silenced an ASU offense that put up nine runs on the board just the night before.
Sharpe navigated through five walks in throwing 5.1 shutout innings. Following Sharpe was Easter who finished off the rest of the game for the Seahawks by giving up only two hits in 3.2 spotless innings.
ASU was 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position and 1-for-15 with runners on base.
“We didn’t do a really good job with our situational hitting,” Smith said.
The Sun Devils’ top two hitters in Gage Canning and Lyle Lin did extend their hitting streaks to 15 games as the duo recorded two of ASU’s five overall hits in the contest.
Although he allowed a total of ten hits on the evening, Lingos had a very strong start for the Sun Devils as the senior only allowed one run through the first six innings of his outing.
“Whatever the situation is I want the person out there that to me is the most aggressive with the best mindset,” Smith said.
Then with his pitch count rising into the triple digits, fatigue set in for Lingos as the lefty allowed two runs to score on a bases clearing double from Mason Berne in the seventh inning.
“Honestly with him in that situation we thought was still throwing the ball well,” Smith said.
Berne, along with Greg Jones and Ryan Jeffers had two runs batted in on the night.
Next: ASU Baseball: Bats lead Sun Devils to 9-4 win over UNC Wilmington
ASU and UNC Wilmington finish off the three-game set on Sunday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. MT as Boyd Vander Kooi is projected to start on the mound for the Sun Devils.
All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.