(Photo: Susan Wong/WCSN)
Even though Arizona State came into Saturday night’s game knowing it had lost the series against No. 22 Arizona, it still aimed to draw final blood.
The series finale would be a different kind of game compared to the first two, which were high scoring back-and-forth affairs.
Instead, the Sun Devils grinded out a 3-2 victory over the Wildcats, one in which ASU allowed 11 hits compared to five of its own.
“All weekend I thought they (Arizona) did a really good job of keeping the pressure on,” ASU head coach Tracy Smith said. “I was proud of the way that our guys kept battling and making the pitch, and then playing good defense behind because that’s been our ‘M.O.’ from the beginning of the season.”
The key on Saturday was ASU’s pitching in high-leverage situations, led by junior left-hander Justin Fall and sophomore right-hander Will Levine.
It started in the third inning with the Wildcats having runners at first and second. Fall, who started the game for ASU, minimized the damage by allowing his only run.
He would get out of two more first-and-second jams before his final test in the seventh inning. Fall would allow a double and hit a batter before being relieved for Levine.
Levine cleaned up the mess with a double play to end the inning which fired up the crowd. The first Sun Devil to congratulate him was Fall, who jumped out of the dugout with fiery emotion.
“I just do what I would want guys to do for me,” Fall said. “First guy out of the dugout, pumping those guys up and congratulating them. Obviously, Will knew the job wasn’t done. Those runners were mine so selfishly I didn’t want those guys to score.
“That double play was huge for our team and ended up propelling us to that win.”
Levine went the rest of the way for ASU, but similar to Fall, it was not smooth sailing. As the Wildcats had done the entire series, they were determined to respond with a late-game run.
This time, the ASU defense won the battle.
Arizona tacked on a run off of another double-play turned by Arizona State in the eighth inning, making the game interesting once again at 3-2. The Wildcats then threatened even more after sophomore second baseman Kobe Kato advanced a runner to third with a single and then stole second.
However, Levine would make the big play once again on the next batter, striking out sophomore third baseman Nik McClaughry in a seven-pitch at-bat.
“Because of some of the injuries that we’ve had, [Levine] has capitalized and thrived and really grown in that role,” Smith said. “We feel tremendously confident with him in bringing him in any situation. The high-leverage, it doesn’t matter to him.
“It’s been fun, quite frankly, from a coaching standpoint to see the growth of him right in front your eyes in the last 3-4 weeks. In my opinion, [he] has turned himself into a top-line, frontline type of arm in the Pac-12.”
Levine then pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning to earn his second save of the season.
In total, ASU stranded 10 Wildcat runners as Arizona hit a horrific 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
On the offensive end, ASU struggled to get anything past freshman right-handed starting pitcher TJ Nichols, who has been erratic this year with a 5.40 ERA.
The only action early on for the Sun Devils was in the second inning. After junior left-fielder Hunter Jump started the inning off with a double, he would score off of freshman Jack Moss’s sacrifice fly.
Freshman third baseman Hunter Haas would add to the lead in the inning with an RBI double down the right field line that barely missed Arizona first baseman Branden Boissiere’s glove.
Nichols would shut down ASU for three innings after the offensive spurt. His night would end after the sixth after an RBI single from Jump. The run would prove to be the difference in the Sun Devils’ win.
Jump was one of the only sources of offense for the Sun Devils, recording three of the team’s five hits as well as scoring a run.
By avoiding the series sweep, ASU was able to build some momentum that could catapult them heading into its non-conference matchup with Arizona on Tuesday. The two teams now have the same conference record (5-4 Pac-12) and are only separated by a couple wins overall.
“You always take something good away from that negative result,” Smith said. “More important than the momentum piece, what I want to see is growth of a team, and I thought we really grew tonight.”
