(Photo: Samantha Maxwell/WCSN)
Before Arizona State baseball’s first pitch, there was a noticeable difference in the atmosphere leading up to the opening moments. A crowd of 6,370 gathered at Phoenix Municipal Stadium for the Pac-12 home opener and a three-game Territorial Cup series, which always brings excitement across any ASU-Arizona contest.
In the sea of the season-high attendance, a group of Sun Devil fans followed one man — at first glance one may look the other direction as he blends into the crowd, wearing a white polo with a small, silver pitchfork on his chest and gray slacks — but after throwing out the first pitch, he fist-bumped fans as he walked to the Inferno Section, where he sat with ASU students pregame.
The white polo-dressed man is head football coach Kenny Dillingham, who arrived at Muni to catch his first glimpse of the Territorial Cup since his new job, and in the process, living up to his “activate the Valley” mantra, which he has emphasized since his introductory press conference.
“We do appreciate everybody’s support. I mean activated the Valley, this is it,” Dillingham told the crowd in the middle of the first inning. “You’re out here on a Friday night, you could be anywhere, right? It’s a beautiful state, but we’re all here supporting Sun Devil Athletics. That’s what activated the Valley is. That’s what this school means to me. We want everybody in this community involved.
“My challenge to you is, can you bring a friend next time? Can you bring one more person with you to support these players? … We have our spring game on April 15, and we’re trying to get 40,000 people there. I challenge everyone here to be there.”
As different as football and baseball are — especially at ASU where Sun Devil Stadium and Muni are separated by 2.5 miles and Tempe Town Lake — the similarities between the two programs are striking. Both are led by alums of the university and neither required previous head coaching experience before taking over their respective programs.
It was only a year ago when head baseball coach Willie Bloomquist was in Dillingham’s position, that is attempting to rebuild a program in his first year at the helm.
After a poor first season, Bloomquist’s program has grown in the previous calendar year, as it sat above .500 entering conference play for the first time since 2021. And following an explosive win against No. 25 GCU, the Sun Devils’ (14-8, 3-1 Pac-12) hot bats continued, defeating Arizona (13-7, 3-4) 6-5.
“Never a dull moment. It was fun,” Bloomquist said. “Certainly, it’s great to come out on the winning side of that, but it was a pretty good baseball game on both sides, really. At the end of the day, they competed well, we competed well and came out on top. … that’s a good way to start it.”
The star of the night was junior second baseman Luke Keaschall, who continued his hot streak against the Wildcats, hitting two home runs and driving in five RBIs, extending his multi-RBI game to five of the last seven games. Entering Friday’s contest, the reigning Pac-12 Player of the Week drove in a team-high 15 RBIs and batted .529 in his previous eight matches.
Before Keaschall’s first-inning home run, junior right-handed pitch Ross Dunn allowed two runs in a 22-pitch opening frame. Keaschall’s two-run shot immediately tied the game, which didn’t last for long. Two innings later, Keaschall smacked a ball 402 feet to dead center, yielding a 5-2 ASU lead.
“Honestly, just trying to split by field to the ball a little longer, stay back,” Keaschall said “Just not trying to do too much. Honestly, see ball hit ball.”
“If I see a pitch I like to hit, I’ll swing. It doesn’t really matter if it’s 0-0, 2-0 or if it’s 0-2,” Keaschall added. “I’m not too worried about being a one-pitch out because if I made my pitch and I hit it hard, I’m betting on it being a hit.”
Although Dunn hit a batter in the second, he picked up two outs before the free base and forced a flyout to end the inning. Like the previous frame, the third began with two quick outs and then a walk. But this time, Dunn didn’t get his third out in four batters. Instead, he walked two more batters, loading the bases with two outs. He managed to get out of the inning unscathed but tacked on unnecessary pitches to his pitch count.
“I think he dug deep today,” Bloomquist said. “He had, I think in the third inning there, he walked three highs in a row and we were contemplating giving him the hook. But he dug a little bit deeper and was able to get a punch out there to end that inning. … And then got two quick outs the following inning even. So, we were actually contemplating going with him for one more.”
Like his earlier innings, Dunn got two quick outs before allowing a single to junior catcher Cameron LaLiberte, who stole second during the next at-bat. An RBI single would score LaLiberte from second, which was followed up with another single, ending Dunn’s evening.
“Then hit a little speed bump there and we thought the ball was flattened out a little bit,” Bloomquist said. “But he didn’t throw the ball as well as he’s capable of. 103 pitches in 4 2/3 is not pinpoint accuracy for him. So there’s a lot more in the tank. But I think when a guy can gut it up a little bit and get through 4 2/3 and give your team a chance — after giving up two in the first and kind of settling things down and not having his best stuff — and still keeping a pretty good offensive team in check, you know, he’s gonna keep getting better.”
Replacing Dunn was junior righty Matt Tieding, who ended the inning with a strikeout. Tieding provided the Sun Devils with 3 1/3 innings of relief but was almost pulled in the eighth inning. Bloomquist explained he nearly took Tieding out but kept him in after talking it over with him.
“The amount of conviction in his voice when he comes up to me — it’s not encouraged for a pitcher to come up and tell me what he wants to do,” Bloomquist said. “But when a young man looks right through your eyes and says ‘I want the frickin ball, and I will get you to the ninth. Let’s go, I want it.’ And we need a little bit more of that. And, you know what? It was a situation that I thought, ‘okay.’ It’s one that I didn’t think was going to be too detrimental. Worst case scenario, we had good backup behind him.”
The Sun Devils welcomed a plethora of new players to Tempe this season, both as transfers and incoming freshmen. Despite the new faces, Bloomquist took it upon himself to share some of the Territorial Cup’s history with the team, hoping to have them understand how intense the series can be.
The intensity showed after the eighth inning when players from both sides began to trash-talk one another in a two-run game heading into the ninth inning. Following the verbal exchange, ASU was given a warning from the umpires, which Bloomquist believes comes with the nature of the game.
“This is a rivalry that has been around a lot longer than I’ve been here, and it’s supposed to be intense,” Bloomquist said. “It’s supposed to be heated a little bit. And if you can enjoy that, and why do we have rivalry? So for me again, I don’t encourage our guys talking and chirping. But on the same token, it’s going to happen in a series like this. So am I disappointed? Not really.”
