Photo: Blaine McCormick/WCSN
A weekend that began with an arduous task and a statement win ended on a sour note Sunday for Arizona State baseball, as it fell 5-2 to the consensus No. 1 team in college baseball, the TCU Horned Frogs.
After opening the series with a 13-9 win on Friday and an 8-4 loss on Saturday, head coach Tracy Smith handed the ball to freshman left-hander Spencer Van Scoyoc for his second collegiate start.
The Cedar Rapids, IO native didn’t disappoint as he hurled six innings, scattering two hits, five walks and four strikeouts while allowing an unearned run. The blemish came in the fifth inning when TCU right fielder Austen Wade reached on an error by ASU second baseman Jackson Willeford, allowing Mason Hesse to score.
Van Scoyoc’s offense didn’t fare much better on the day at the hands of TCU redshirt sophomore Jared Janczak. ASU’s success was limited to just one inning, as they plated the first two runs of the game on a Tyler Williams RBI ground out and a Carter Aldrete RBI single in the top of the fifth.
Janczak (2-0) finished with a line of seven innings, five hits, two runs and four strikeouts.
The score remained 2-1 in ASU’s favor until the bottom of the seventh, when ASU freshman Chaz Montoya (0-1) came on in relief of Van Scoyoc and allowed three runs in the span of four batters, highlighted by back-to-back RBI doubles coming from Elliott Barzilli and Evan Skoug.
TCU tacked on their fifth run in the eighth inning, as Wade tripled in Zach Humphreys off of ASU’s Fitz Stadler.
The Sun Devils will now head home for the foreseeable future, as they won’t leave the confines of Phoenix Municipal Stadium until their first conference road series against USC, starting on March 24th.
The loss dropped ASU to 4-3 on the young season, while TCU improved to 6-1.
Bobby Kraus is a baseball beat reporter for the Walter Cronkite Sports Network. You can follow him on Twitter @bobbykraus22
