ASU Baseball: Sun Devils rally behind ejected manager in 8-3 win over Arizona

Hunter Bishop homered again, Sam Romero threw three brilliant innings in relief and ASU baseball scored four runs with two outs in its 24th win.

Alika Williams was tagging up from second base on the throw from Arizona center fielder Donta Williams.

The Williams on base slid into third before the ball came into the bag. It looked like he was safe.

The only problem was that he was out.

Second base umpire Ryan Goodman believed that Alika Williams had left early when tagging up at second.

The 5,688 screaming fans in attendance begged to differ. The team in maroon and gold was also in a state of confusion.

That’s when ASU head coach Tracy Smith came in the fray.

“He had that look in him,” ASU first baseman Spencer Torkelson said.

And Smith didn’t just look the part, he acted the part as well, eventually finding himself in his office overlooking the field by the time his screaming match with Goodman was over.

“Well, the conversation wasn’t going very well,” Smith said. “I just went and took my shower.”

“He was appropriate in throwing me out.”

The call didn’t get reversed and the inning ended with a zero on the scoreboard for the Sun Devils. But despite seeing their manager ejected for the first time, ASU didn’t crumble.

“As I was running off the field, (Carter) Aldrete was on first and he was like, ‘We’ve got you skip,'” Smith said. ‘” We’ve got you.'”

Aldrete’s words were true.

A three-run sixth inning followed Smith’s ejection in the fifth. That inning and three scoreless frames from Sam Romero in relief catapulted the Sun Devils to an 8-3 victory over Arizona on Saturday night at Phoenix Municipal Stadium.

Prior to Smith’s dramatic ejection from the ballgame, ASU had only drawn blood against Arizona’s pitching in the first inning when the Sun Devils scored five runs. The scoring barrage included another Hunter Bishop home run (his 16th) and RBI’s from Myles Denson and Sam Ferri.

The Wildcats, on the other hand, couldn’t get an inning out of starting pitcher Quinn Flanagan, used five pitchers on the night and never threatened until Dayton Dooney’s three-run home run in the fourth inning that cut the ASU lead at the time to two.

But Dooney’s long bomb couldn’t save the Wildcats.

“They’re (ASU) playing very confidently,” Smith said. “They’re not worried about the result. They’re just focusing on the next pitch.”

As Smith finished retelling the media the words of encouragement that Aldrete shared to him, Aldrete himself was in the back corner of the room. His head peaked through the sliding door into the press room and nobody knew of his presence until he began speak.

“You’re damn right,” Aldrete said.

The Sun Devils conclude their series with their in-state rivals on Sunday for game 3. First pitch will be at 1 p.m. MST.

All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.