Sun Devils Eliminated From Regionals After 7-4 Loss
By Kody Acevedo
It’s crazy how quick a season can come to an end.
For the Sun Devils, their season came to an end after Pepperdine scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning Sunday to win the Fullerton Regional elimination game 7-4.
The Sun Devils, after dropping Saturday night’s game 3-2 in 14 innings to Cal State Fullerton, moved to the elimination game to face a Pepperdine team that originally lost to Fullerton Friday to begin the regionals.
Pepperdine then beat Clemson 10-8 yesterday, eliminating the Tigers and hanging on to play another day.
That ‘another day’ happened to feature the Sun Devils who were, in a way, still recovering from that 14 inning game that went into the early hours of Sunday morning.
But out of the gate, it seemed the Sun Devils weren’t terribly fazed from that monster game the night before.
With the game scoreless in the top of the third inning, Andrew Snow hit a sac-fly to center field to score RJ Ybarra and the game’s first run.
A few batters later, Jake Peevyhouse singled to score Zach Cerbo, who reached base earlier in the inning with a single.
But in the fourth, Pepperdine answered back with two runs of their own to tie the game 2-2.
And it didn’t stop their. Pepperdine added another two runs in the fifth inning to take a 4-2 lead.
Things got exciting late in the game when Peevyhouse homered in the sixth inning to bring the Sun Devils within one.
The following inning, RJ Ybarra scored via another sac-fly by Snow. The game was now tied 4-4.
But Pepperdine was not going to repeat what ASU went through the night before. A bases-clearing double in the bottom of the eighth off the bat of Hutton Moyer gave Pepperdine the eventual 7-4 win.
And that’s all she wrote for the Sun Devils in 2015.
The win went to Pepperdine reliever Chandler Blanchard (4-3) after his 2/3 inning of work.
The loss was handed to Darin Gillies (3-6) who gave up the go-ahead three runs in the bottom of the eighth.
ASU will now head home and try to figure out 2016.
Pepperdine, who has won two in-a-row in the elimination bracket, will go on to face the 2-0 Fullerton Titans in the regional championship game.