Arizona State’s baseball season abruptly ends with a 13-12 loss.
BATON ROUGE – Southern Mississippi baseball coach Scott Berry got his Jack Buck calls confused, but he had the feeling right for his team and unfortunately for Arizona State, too, at the NCAA Regional Sunday afternoon at Alex Box Stadium.
“Well, our radio announcer, just the other day, listened to Jack Buck’s 1985 NLCS call when Ozzie Smith left the yard,” Berry said. “And Jack called it as good as anybody when he said, ‘I can’t believe what I just saw.’ And honestly, I can’t believe what I just saw out of our guys.”
Neither could the Sun Devils, who were eliminated, 13-12, by Southern Mississippi in the bottom of the ninth inning after leading 10-2 in the fifth, 12-6 after seven and 12-9 after eight. Their season ended at 38-19 when Southern Mississippi’s Gabe Montenegro laced a two-out, two-RBI single into right field for the walk-off win.
“Well, that’s certainly a tough one,” ASU coach Tracy Smith said. “Not a lot to say about that, other than I enjoyed this team. Because up until that point (in the ninth), it was pretty much going scripted. But once we got to the loaded situation and all that, at that point, you’re just trying to hang on and win a baseball game by whatever means necessary.”
ASU reliever Brady Corrigan allowed singles to Matt Wallner and Bryant Bowen to start the ninth with ASU up 12-9. Then Blake Burzell relieved Corrigan, only to walk Erick Hoard to load the bases. Burzell then hit Hunter LeBlanc to force in a run and cut ASU’s lead to 12-10 with still nobody out.
Chaz Montoya, whom Smith had planned to save for a Sunday night game against LSU or for the regional title game on Monday, replaced Burzell and got Danny Lynch to fly out to right field for the first out. That was a sacrifice fly for a run, though, cutting ASU’s lead to 12-11. A wild pitch put runners on second and third, but Montoya struck out Storme Cooper for the second out. Almost there.
Then Montenegro stepped up and delivered the game-winner.
Actually, the “I can’t believe what I just saw” was Buck’s call of Kirk Gibson’s home run for the Los Angeles Dodgers to beat the Oakland A’s, 5-4, in the 1988 World Series opener that the Dodgers eventually won. Buck’s call of the Smith walk-off home run that beat the Dodgers, 3-2, in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series in 1985 was “Go crazy, folks! Go crazy. It’s a home run.”
The Southern Mississippi coach did feel like he just saw something crazy.
“Seven runs in the last two innings was not what you expect, but doggone it, that’s what we got,” Berry said. “It wasn’t the start that we were looking for honestly, but it was the finish that we needed. And we got to stay alive and play against LSU.”
The Golden Eagles (40-20) advanced to a 6 p.m. game against LSU (39-24), which beat Southern Mississippi, 8-4, on Saturday night. USM needed to beat LSU Sunday night and Monday to advance to the Super Regional round. The Tigers advance with one win.
ASU got the exact start it wanted. Sophomore right-hander Boyd Vander Kooi started and threw a career-high 125 pitches through 7 2/3 innings to save the bullpen for the next two games.
The Sun Devils took a 4-0 lead in the first and made it 5-0 in the second. ASU scored a run in the fourth for a 6-2 lead and made it 10-2 in the fifth. After USM drew within 10-6 in the bottom of the fifth, Spencer Torkelson answered with a two-run home run in the sixth for a 12-6 lead.
“It honestly didn’t feel like that close of a game until they got a couple of runners on in that last inning,” ASU second baseman Drew Swift said. “And then we knew we had to tighten down.”
Vander Kooi left with that 12-6 lead with two out in the eighth. Corrigan came on and immediately allowed a three-run home run to Matthew Guidry.
Vander Kooi allowed 11 hits and eight runs. Burzell (5-1) took the loss after giving up two runs on no hits with a walk and a hit batter. Brant Blaylock (2-1) threw 17 pitches for the win.