Arizona Wildcats Pounce on Arizona State Sun Devils
Mandatory Credit: Bruce Thorson-USA TODAY Sports
The Arizona State Sun Devils came up short in their 10-9 loss to the Arizona Wildcats Wednesday in the last installment of the Territorial Cup at ASU’s Packard Stadium.
Trending in the form of a seesaw affair, the game saw six different pitchers for the Devils and seven for the Cats, with five lead changes.
Despite RJ “Clutch” Ybarra going 3-for-4 with three RBIs on the night, ASU couldn’t seem to battle back late in the ninth to secure a win.
ASU’s starting RHP Seth Martinez saw trouble early, giving up one run in the first inning and three in the third, but the Devils came back with three of their own via back-to-back jacks by Drew Stankiewicz and Colby Woodmansee in the third off of Arizona starting RHP Morgan Earman.
After two ASU pitching changes, Arizona plated one in the fourth on an RBI single by Kevin Newman and another in the fifth per a Scott Kingery solo-homer, his first on the year.
Starting a rally in the bottom of the fifth inning, Ybarra hit his ninth two-out RBI of the season. Jake Peevyhouse and Dalton DiNatale, who extended his hitting streak to 10 games, followed his trend with RBIs.
LHP Nick Diamond came in at the top of the sixth, but let two Wildcats cross home after a wild pitch and an overthrow by Ybarra.
The winning run came unearned in the top of the eighth inning at the hands of Willie Calhoun after Woodmansee muffed his grounder at shortstop.
Woodmansee didn’t feel good about the loss, despite his homer in the third inning. “The locker room is quiet, everyone’s pretty pissed off,” he said after the game. “No one wants to lose to U of A at Packard.”
Wednesday’s game was the second of five matchups between the Devils and Cats this season, and the last Territorial Cup game to be played at Packard Stadium before the team moves over to Phoenix Municipal Stadium for the 2015 season.
“[There have been] a lot of big games, a lot of historic games against the Wildcats here in this stadium, so that’ll be something special,” head coach Tim Esmay said before the game. “It’ll be something that we probably gotta take in and take a step away at some point during the game and just kind of embrace that this is it, this is the last thing, but then obviously move it over and bringing the series back to [Phoenix Municipal Stadium], how it used to be, is kind of exciting too.”
The Sun Devils (17-13) play at home again this weekend in a three-game PAC-12 conference matchup against the California Golden Bears (14-15).