ASU Baseball: Sun Devils take one of three vs. Arizona

ASU baseball traveled to Tucson this weekend, where they managed to win one game out of three against the Arizona Wildcats.

Game one on Thursday was a back-and-forth affair that saw U of A take home the win by a score of 6-4.

Alec Marsh was the starter for this game and made it through the first three innings with relative ease. The Wildcat hitters jumped on Marsh in the fourth inning however, as they chased the sophomore starter from the game after five straight hits (including four doubles) and three runs.

This outburst erased the two-run lead that ASU had jumped out to in the top half of that inning courtesy of Carter Aldrete’s two RBI single.

The Sun Devils struck for more runs in the top half of the fifth, when Spencer Torkelson put ASU on top 4-3 with a two-run home run, his Division-I leading 23rd of the year.

The score would stay like this until the seventh, when the wheels fell off for ASU.

Arizona put three runs on the board on three hits, but were aided by two costly errors by the Sun Devils that prolonged the inning.

Pitcher Boyd Vander Kooi made a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt attempt that allowed one of the runs to score, and catcher Lyle Lin dropped the ball when a runner attempted to tag up on a flyout which allowed another run to score.

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ASU came close to to scoring in the eighth, but couldn’t push across the runs they needed in order to make a comeback.

Game two on Friday was a slugfest that went to ASU by a score of 10-5. The runs came early and often in this one, with ASU getting on the scoreboard in the top of the first on Gage Canning’s ninth home run of the year.

U of A quickly matched though, as first baseman Alfonso Rivas scored on starter Sam Romero’s wild pitch after doubling with one out in the inning.

The ASU bats would come alive in the top of the second, scoring four runs on a bases clearing double by Hunter Bishop and a sacrifice fly by Hunter Jump.

The Wildcats would again match this, however, as they scored four runs in the bottom of the third on RBI singles by Nick Quintana, Matt Fraizer and Jacob Blas, the last of which drove in two.

The ASU pitchers would lock it down from here, as relievers Spencer Van Scoyoc, Connor Higgins and Brady Corrigan would combine to throw 6.1 innings of three hit, no run ball.

This gave the Sun Devil offense some breathing room until they broke through again in the sixth, when they made the score 8-5 on an RBI single by Aldrete and a two-RBI single by Bishop.

They would then tack on some insurance runs in the ninth when Torkelson hit home run No. 24, a two-run shot that put ASU up 10-5, where it would stay for good.

Game three on Saturday was an extra inning affair, which went to the Wildcats by a score of 10-9. The runs would again come early, as both ASU and U of A struck for two runs in the first inning.

In the top half of the inning, Canning drove in Jump with an RBI groundout and Aldrete hit yet another RBI single that brought home Torkelson. In the bottom half, Quintana hit a two-run home run off of starter Eli Lingos that erased the lead the Sun Devils had built.

ASU would make the score 3-2 in the top of the second when Alika Williams hit a sacrifice fly to bring home Gage Workman, who led off the inning with a double.

The two in-state rivals would again match each other in an inning, as both teams put up four runs in the fourth inning. In the top of the fourth, Bishop stayed hot with a solo home run to lead off the inning and Torkelson hit yet another bomb, his 25th of the season and third of the series, to put ASU up 7-2.

The Arizona bats also stayed hot in the bottom half of that inning, as another home run by Quintana and a bases clearing double by Ryan Haug would chase Lingos out of the game and made the score 7-6.

The Wildcats evened things up at seven in the bottom of the sixth when Fraizer drove in Blas with an RBI single.

The two teams would yet again go blow for blow in the seventh, with both of them scoring two runs to tie the game at nine. ASU’s runs came courtesy of another Hunter Bishop home run, a two-run shot, and Arizona’s came after Bishop dropped a fly ball in left that allowed two runs to score.

The pitchers would bear down after this, as both teams did not score for another three innings. Both sides came close though, as ASU left the bases loaded in the eighth and 11th and U of A left the bases loaded in the 8th and two runners on in the 9th.

The Wildcats would go on to win it in the 11th, as Donta Williams played the hero and drove home Quintana from second with a single through the right side.

Next: ASU Baseball: Power outage didn’t stop Devils offense in 8-3 win

ASU’s record fell to 22-30 after the series loss, while Arizona’s improved to 32-21. The Sun Devils will now travel back home for their final series of the season next Thursday through Saturday against the Cal Golden Bears.

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