(Photo: Connor Gleason/WCSN)
PHOENIX – With two outs and a runner on first base, sophomore catcher Coen Niclai stepped up to the plate with a chance to deliver a win for Arizona State on a night that had not been so lucky. After all, ASU had multiple hard-hit balls go right to GCU players.
As Niclai’s swing connected with the pitch, flaring the ball down the third-base line, it appeared that it might go foul. Instead, the Sun Devils caught an offensive break that they hadn’t had all night, as the ball galloped off third base and into left field.
When the ball reached GCU left fielder Tanner Johns, he tripped, and in St. Patrick’s Day fashion, junior first baseman Dominic Smaldino came into score, finalizing the turn in the Sun Devils’ luck.
Niclai’s walk-off, while scored as an error, helped push the Sun Devils (15-5, 2-1 Big 12) past their very close rivals GCU (8-14) 4-3 in 10 innings. The win marks the first extra-innings game the Sun Devils have played all season.
“Obviously, never going to be disappointed with a win,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “Especially a walk-off. We came out and did what we had to do to get a win. Coen came up big for big with not only the two-run homer, but the base hit there at the end, literally a base hit.”
While the offense came through in the end, it was the pitching staff that held the Sun Devils in the game for much of Tuesday night. In particular, when the game could’ve gotten out of reach for ASU, with it being down 3-1 in the seventh, graduate pitcher Colby Guy came in and locked the door.
“That’s a guy we haven’t used enough in my opinion,” Bloomquist said. “That’s my fault. We go with the guys that have been here, that we know and are comfortable with, but these other guys, when their opportunities are there, they step up. The way he did tonight, I was like, wow I have to start using that guy more.”
Guy had only appeared in four games this season coming into Tuesday night, with just four innings of work to show for it. However, in the crucial late-game scenario, Guy delivered 2.2 scoreless innings with four strikeouts, including blowing a 95 mph fastball by Max Charles to end the ninth inning.
“We need to get some other guys to step up,” Bloomquist said. “These are games we have to win. It has to be someone other than [Sean Fitzpatrick and Derek Schaefer] every night. I think the job Colby Guy did tonight was outstanding, and he’ll play a much bigger role going forward.”
In these midweek games, Bloomquist has relied heavily on the bullpen, whether it was Taylor Penn and Colin Linder last week or Guy and Easton Barrett this week. The success has seemingly come from being as close as a unit.
“It’s great vibes,” Guy said. “It’s all coming from [pitching coach Jeremy Accardo]. We’re down there every day, just practicing and getting better. Everyone has good stuff, and everybody believes it.”
Barrett, who struggled early in the season with his command at the plate, has seemed to find his form, giving up no hits in his last two outings and only walking two batters.
“He was pounding the zone a little better,” Bloomquist said. “Every once in a while, he lost it a little bit and walked a couple of hitters. But even when he was behind in the count, he was able to get back in the count with a breaking ball. A big step in the right direction for him tonight.”
On the offensive end, it was a slow start for ASU, scoring no runs through five innings. The Sun Devils were getting hits, but just weren’t able to string runs together until late in the game, going 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, an area they have struggled with this season.
Along with the struggles, ASU also had multiple instances of solid contact where the GCU defense was in the right place at the right time. In particular, senior right fielder Dean Toigo appeared to have a walk-off in the ninth inning, but the GCU center-fielder made a perfect play to prevent ASU from scoring.
“I thought the offensive approach was fine,” Bloomquist said. “The aura and intensity I thought would be a little bit better from our guys tonight, especially with the crowd we had. I mean, we had close to 5,000 fans tonight.”
Even on an unlucky evening, the Sun Devils’ new home run leader was able to get on the board with a home run in the sixth to get ASU on the scoresheet.
“It feels good,” Toigo said. “I didn’t have time to really take it in, because we still have work to do, but it feels good.”
Before his walk-off hit in the 10th, Niclai played a crucial role in getting the Sun Devils to extra innings with a game-tying two-run home run in the seventh inning. While the sophomore only gets credited with RBIs for the home run, he played a role in all but one of the ASU runs on Tuesday.
“[Niclai] did a great job,” Bloomquist said. “He saved us offensively. We were pretty lackluster. We had some hits, but we just couldn’t string much together. Couldn’t get that big hit with two out. But he came up and popped a two-run homer to tie it, and obviously came up with the big hit at the end.”
Niclai’s heroics saved the Sun Devils from a dull performance against an in-state rival. For much of the game, the energy from the Sun Devil offense appeared to be nonexistent. An almost half-capacity Phoenix Municipal Stadium was rocking, but the play on the field, at least for the home side, wasn’t.
“I cautioned our guys going into this game that they’re going to come at us hard,” Bloomquist said. “We have to be ready to play and match the intensity. I don’t think we did that early on, quite honestly. We fell behind, and then our guys started going, “Oh crap, we have to get going.”
While GCU isn’t widely known as a major rival of ASU, the lack of intensity early on in the game may serve as a possible concern as the Sun Devils host even higher-quality conference opponents, both on the road and at home.
“Grand Canyon always plays us tough,” Bloomquist said. “They’re always up to play us. They’re always ready to play. I talked to [GCU head coach Greg Wallis] over there, and he’s asking me how many times we want to play this year.”
The Sun Devils will take this luck and momentum and hope to continue their conference success against one of the top offensive teams in the Big 12, as they travel to Manhattan, Kansas, to take on Kansas State this weekend.
“You find out the resiliency and the toughness,” Bloomquist said of midweek games. “You see it every week. Top 10 teams get knocked off in a midweek game by a team that I’ve never heard of, and they’re winning big games against a top team in the country.”
