Sun Devils’ Midweek Loss to No. 17 Arizona slims postseason chances further

(Photo: Sammy Nute/WCSN)

PHOENIX — Willie Bloomquist is no stranger to the Territorial Cup’s history and significance in Arizona.

The Port Orchard, Washington native got his first taste of the rivalry when he began his college career at Arizona State in 1997. During Bloomquist’s three seasons as a middle infielder in Tempe, the Sun Devils went a respectable 12-6 against Arizona, qualifying for the postseason in all the years while reaching the College World Series in 1998.

Although he didn’t grow up in the Grand Canyon State, Bloomquist quickly gained an appreciation for the Territorial Cup while playing for the Sun Devils. He brought that same intensity back with him some 22 years later when he was named ASU’s sixth head coach in program history in 2021.

So on May 5, when Arizona outfielder Brendan Summerhill told the media that his group wants to “score 100 and give up zero” in a midweek matchup against the Sun Devils — the 493rd chapter of the Territorial Cup on the diamond — two days later, Bloomquist was more than happy to share a passionate response.

“Good luck, kid,” Bloomquist said with a sly grin following Sunday’s 21-18 win over Washington. “Bring it, let’s go. We ain’t going to back down from anybody. That’s good that they’re that confident, so are we… We’ll be ready to play, and at the end of the day, we want to beat them by 100 as well. And if we get the opportunity, we won’t stop.”

However, Summerhill had the last laugh, as the 17th-ranked Wildcats (30-17, 17-7 Pac-12) cruised to a 5-3 win over ASU (26-24, 14-13 Pac-12). But Tuesday’s loss meant more than simply being bested by a hated rival. It represented perhaps the Sun Devils’ final chance to knock off a ranked opponent.

ASU has one Pac-12 series and six regular season contests left on its schedule, with none of its remaining three opponents — Stanford, Texas Tech and UNLV — ranked inside D1Baseball’s latest top-25 poll. The Red Raiders are the lone squad of the three possessing a winning record and could very well be a top-25 team when they visit Tempe in nine days with a series win over No. 19 Oklahoma State this coming weekend.

Even so, Tuesday’s defeat felt like a missed opportunity for the Sun Devils, who need every resumé-boosting win they can get amid the regular season’s final stretch.

“At the end of all this, we may look back and say,‘Yeah, that was a disappointing one’, but to me they all stink,” Bloomquist said. “Anytime you lose, they all leave a mark. (I) especially hate losing to those guys.”

At 26-24 overall with six games left, the chances of ASU receiving an NCAA Tournament at-large are all but zero. This means that the Sun Devils’ lone path to a berth in the tournament is winning the nine-team Pac-12 Tournament, as conference champions receive an automatic bid in the postseason.

To qualify for the Pac-12 Tournament, ASU must finish no lower than ninth in the conference. It currently sits comfortably in sixth place, and with six more conference wins than tenth-ranked Washington State, it will likely make the cut.

But if the Sun Devils intend to win the tournament, which will require them to win their three-team pool or be the “wild-card” team — the squad with the best record of any non-advancing team — they will need to pick up some victories beforehand to solidify their positioning and generate some momentum.

“I think at the end of the day, where our situation is, we’ve got to win games regardless of who we’re playing against,” Bloomquist said. “This could have been, at least in the regular season, an opportunity to move up RPI-wise, but if we’re already counting RPI, we’re in trouble. We’re just going to go out and win games and see where we are at the end of the season, and hopefully make some noise in the conference tournament.”

Fortunately for Bloomquist, ASU has been red-hot of late, winning nine of its last 12 games. During these two weeks, the Sun Devils turned losing records, both overall and Pac-12, into marks above .500, not an easy task considering the difficulty of their schedule this year. This recent stretch gives Bloomquist every inclination to believe his tough-nosed, experienced group can make a run in the Pac-12 Tournament.

“(I’m) extremely happy with the guys,” Bloomquist said. “Lesser teams would have folded a long time ago. I think we had a pretty grueling schedule early on… But at the end of the day, they made it through it and they are playing their best baseball here towards the end of the year. And if we can continue to do that, that’s when you want to play your best baseball. But they’ve been battle-tested and they’ve stayed resilient. They haven’t quit.”