(Photo: Dominic Cotroneo/WCSN)
Clearly the Sun Devils didn’t like yesterday’s loss to Tennessee Tech.
Coming off an ugly 7-4 defeat, Arizona State (28-12) demolished Tennessee Tech (20-21) in the Sunday rubber match, 16-4, making it ASU’s ninth consecutive series win.
ASU seemed like it was on a mission from the start to clinch this series win after they underperformed on Saturday night.
“It was obviously not a great taste in our mouth,” catcher Brian Serven said about last night’s loss. “Going home with a loss, especially against a team that, generally, we should come out and should outperform, which we didn’t, they outperformed us on Saturday and that’s always frustrating. We just came out with a better focus today.”
Sunday’s game was all about the ASU offense, which dropped an impressive 16 runs on 18 hits–both of which were season high’s. Moreover, the Sun Devils displayed some power with seven doubles.
Although every hitter for ASU had a solid performance and every starter notched a hit, nobody outplayed catcher Brian Serven. The sophomore catcher recorded three hits, two runs, and a whopping six runs batted in–a career high.
“It’s consistency,” head coach Tracy Smith said. “That guy is about as consistent offensively as anybody we’ve had this year, so six RBI, doing his job. He seems to give a quality at-bat with runners in scoring position which is exactly [what we need]. Sometimes they fall, sometimes they don’t; today they did.”
“You just feel like you want to come up every at-bat with guys in scoring position and guys on base because you feel confident every at-bat. It’s huge to have days like that where you are seeing the ball well, especially when everybody was seeing the ball well like today. That helps all around. One guy gets a hit [and it] leads to another hit,” Serven said.
Lost in all the offensive commotion was starting pitcher Brett Lilek who pitched five solid innings, gave up four hits and recorded five strikeouts. After a rocky start to the season, Lilek lowered his ERA down to 3.66.
“He was good,” Smith said. “And truthfully if we didn’t extend it in the fifth, we were going to send him back out there again. I thought he was sharp. If we get that out of him, that’s going to help as we go down the stretch and make it interesting on, possibly, what we do on Fridays. If he keeps doing that, that helps, but I’m cautiously optimistic and we got to back it up with another one.”
Much like many of their previous contests, the Sun Devils once again raced to an early lead.
Serven kicked off the scoring in the first with a single to left that scored Colby Woodmansee. Serven was then brought home thanks to a line drive triple into the left center field gap from David Greer that put ASU up 2-0 after one inning.
Serven then stepped up in the third and ripped a two-RBI single that put ASU up 4-0.
ASU stayed hot in the fourth inning when Jake Peevyhouse snuck a ground ball single past the TTU infield that scored Andrew Snow to give the Sun Devils a 5-0 advantage.
After Serven and Greer reached base, senior Joey Bielek launched a single to right center field that scored Serven. The offensive barrage continued with Trever Allen’s bases-clearing double, which gave ASU an 8-0 lead.
Nowhere close to being done in the fifth, designated hitter RJ Ybarra smacked a double to left center, scoring Allen in the process. Things would not get any easier for TTU reliever Kyle Godwin when Snow cranked an RBI single and extended the ASU lead to 10-0.
Replacing Godwin with Cain Sloan proved ineffective for the Golden Eagles as well, as Woodmansee then smacked an RBI single to left field. With the bases loaded, Serven added on to his fantastic outing with a 3 RBI double to left, giving the Sun Devils a 14-0 lead.
Amazingly, there were still no outs after Serven slashed the jugular, and ASU wasn’t even finished. The Sun Devils built their lead even more with Zach Cerbo scoring on a Bielek sacrifice fly and Coltin Gerhart coming home from an Ybarra double.
When the inning finally ended, ASU had scored 11 runs, and the 16-0 lead put the game firmly in its grasp.
“I almost forgot what it looked like,” Smith said in regard to extending leads. “Typically when you are doing that you are getting some big two-out hits, but yes this was the first time in a long time that we have extended a lead. I think when you see that it allows your pitcher also to be a little more comfortable. So I’d love to see us continue to do that.”
The shutout was squashed by TTU batter Jordan Hopkins, who hit a sacrifice fly to right to bring in David Allen. ASU would surrender another run due to an Andrew Shaps wild pitch that allowed Dylan Bosheers to cut the ASU lead to 16-2.
Hever Bueno struggled and allowed a two-run home run to Anthony El Chibani, which cut the ASU lead to 16-4.
In the top of the ninth, ASU reliever Grant Schneider took the bump to finish out the game (in what was his second appearance of the season) and pitched effectively to secure the 16-4 win for ASU.
The Sun Devils will face Arizona for the final time this season for a midweek game on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in Tucson. Ryan Hingst will toe the rubber for ASU.
