ASU Baseball: Sun Devils drop season finale; defense sings the same song

(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)

In the final game of the 2018 campaign, the Arizona State Sun Devils took on the California Golden Bears, losing by a final score of 3-0.

Senior day proved to be the lone highlight for the Sun Devils as they wrapped up what has been a disappointing season.

After honoring the five seniors pregame, head coach Tracy Smith gave the start to one of his seniors, right hander, Grant Schneider.

“I got lucky,” Schneider said. “I got to start my first career game and sing the national anthem, it was special and a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life.”

It was a successful start for Schneider who pitched 2.2 innings of shutout ball, striking out three.

He was relieved by his roommate and fellow senior Ryan Hignst, who needed just one out to get through the top of the third and strand Cal sophomore Andrew Vaughn, who was walked by Schneider. The defense behind him let him down as sophomore Carter Aldrete misjudged a pop fly to right field off the bat of junior left fielder Jonah Davis, allowing it to drop over his head.

After misplaying the original fly ball, Aldrete then sent an errant throw to second which resulted in Vaughn being able to score from first and Davis to come all the way around on the little league home run, making the score 2-0 Bears.

Defensive breakdowns have been the story for ASU all season, something Smith is very aware of.

“Regardless of age, I thought the defensive stuff would’ve smoothed itself out sooner,” Skip said. “We were making mistakes, I don’t care if you’re a freshman or not, if you’re a baseball guy those things have to stop.”

The Bears plated another run in their half of the fourth as Sam Wezniak walked to lead off the inning, bouncing Hingst from the game. Wezniak then went first to third on a Ripken Reyes single and scored on a fielder’s choice.

The story of the game was Cal starter Aaron Shortridge. The junior threw a complete game shutout allowing only six hits.

The Sun Devils were unable to get anything going offensively against Shortridge. Their best scoring chance came in the bottom of the fourth when freshman sensation Spencer Torkelson and junior Gage Canning had back-to-back singles which gave the Devils two on and one out in the inning.

Shortridge remained composed and got the next two ASU hitters to fly out to right field ending the threat.

A third senior, Eli Lingos, came in to relieve Hingst in the fourth inning and stemmed the tide for ASU. He cruised for the remainder of the game throwing six full innings of shutout relief.

“I needed that,” Lingos said. “The last couple starts have been a little shaky. I just really focused on getting all my stuff down this week. Really making sure I went out on a good note.”

For Smith, the decision was easy from both a personal perspective and a baseball perspective to go with the senior arms.

“We were a little bit thin in the pen,” Smith said. “I wanted to use those guys anyway. I wanted to use them because I think they earned that right on senior night.

The loss brings ASU’s record for the season to 23-32, 13-17 in Pac-12 play.