(Photo: Sun Devil Athletics)
LINCOLN — As the clock struck 1 a.m. in Nebraska, Arizona State and Ole Miss were still deadlocked. The game was entering the bottom of the 14th inning, and no end seemed in sight.
When junior right-handed pitcher Jaden Alba walked onto the mound for his fifth inning of work, he had already done much of his job. Fast forward three batters in, and the bases were loaded, with the winning run 90 feet away. After a heroic outing, Alba appeared to have expended his energy.
As he threw the ball to the plate, Ole Miss junior DH Brayden Randle’s face lit up as he found his pitch, knocking it into right field to end the game. The Rebels went into a frenzy. The Sun Devils were left in agonizing defeat.
Randle’s walk-off single left ASU (37-20, 19-11 Big 12) losers in its opening game of the Lincoln Regional, 7-6 in 14 innings to Ole Miss.
“For me [the message] was, I just told them how proud I was of them,” Bloomquist said. “ This is the best game they played all year, in my opinion. And on the biggest stage that we’ve had all year long, they showed up, and they balled out. I was proud of them for that.”
While the Sun Devils did fall on Friday, there were still many positive takeaways. In particular, the bullpen stepped up in a way that it hadn’t done for most of the season, led by Alba. The junior came in as the Sun Devils entered extra innings with the hope that he might eat enough innings to keep them alive.
“We went with our third starter to see how long we could ride him,” Bloomquist said. “He was starting to get a little fatigued at the end, but you start using too many guys, you don’t have much left. Jaden was throwing the ball great, so I had no problem running him back out there.”
Alba did just that.
The California native gave ASU four full innings of scoreless baseball before allowing the game-winning run in the 14th inning. Even when the Rebels had the winning run in scoring position, Alba shut the door for as long as he was able to.
Unfortunately for Alba, the Sun Devil offense wasn’t able to muster up anything for much of the game. ASU only managed to get three hits after tying the game in the seventh inning, with none of them coming in the same frame.
“He’s a guy that in the second half of the year really turned it on and became kind of the pitcher he is,” Bloomquist said. “Again, left everything on the field tonight, and I, as a head coach, cannot ask him to do anything more than he did tonight. He threw the ball outstanding, made big pitches when he had to, just super proud of him, and the way he threw the ball and executed in big moments.”
The only real bright spots for the offense were its two and three hole hitters, senior right-fielder Dean Toigo and redshirt junior second-baseman Nu’u Contrades. The pair combined for six of the Sun Devils’ 10 hits on the night, with two of them being Contrades home runs.
In my five years here, I don’t think I’ve been prouder of my guys and my team than I was tonight,” Bloomquist said. “Just obviously, the score didn’t end up in our favor, but our guys battled and left their guts on the field, and to me, that’s all I can ask for as a head coach. They played as well tonight as they have all year long.”
Bloomquist has long talked about needing to find depth in the bottom of the order, and Friday night served as an example of why—the fifth through ninth-hole batters combined to go 2-for-26 throughout the evening.
He even tried putting in junior center-fielder Dominic Longo, who hadn’t played in over three weeks, to try to spark the bottom of the order. While Longo did reach base twice, it did not lead to any sustained offense.
Coming into Friday, ASU was hoping it would get an ace-like start from its ace, junior pitcher Cole Carlon. The southpaw struggled with Ole Miss’ power, allowing six runs, three of which came via the long ball.
Even on an off night, the junior still gave the Sun Devils as much length as he could, going 6.2 innings on 100 pitches. In a game that did not go 14 innings, Carlon likely would’ve allowed ASU to have a fresh bullpen for the remainder of the weekend.
“We’re going to have to bounce back,” Bloomquist said. “Hopefully [senior pitcher Kole Klecker] can give us some length tomorrow and rest those guys up for them to be ready to go the next day, if we can win tomorrow.”
After such a hard-fought battle loss, the Sun Devils will still get a chance to repeat the level. Unfortunately for them, it will be about 12 hours after their first game concludes, leaving very little rest. Along with that, it forces ASU to have to go 4-0 for the rest of the weekend in order to advance to its first Super Regional since 2010.
“We’ll get home, shower, sleep fast, and we’re going to have a quick turnaround,” Bloomquist said.
The Sun Devils will return to the field at 12 p.m. MST against No. 4 seed South Dakota State in the loser’s bracket and will hope to avoid their second straight exit in a regional.
“We gotta dig deep tomorrow and come back after, essentially a heartbreaking loss,” Bloomquist said. “There, we have to come back, bounce back, and be ready to go with the same intensity tomorrow.”
