After a triumphant late victory on Friday night against the San Francisco Dons, it looked like Arizona State (7-9) was en route to a disappointing follow-up on Saturday, trailing USF at the seventh-inning stretch. Much of the same pieces that have haunted the Sun Devils and caused them to lose games were in place: inconsistent hitting unable to dig itself out of a hole despite a stellar outing from the Sun Devil starter.

However, Arizona State managed to channel the same energy from the previous matchup with San Francisco, rattling off three runs in the bottom of the seventh to take the lead. With a dominant performance from redshirt junior righty Kyle Luckham, ASU never looked back, defeating USF 4-2 to acquire their first back-to-back home wins against the same opponent this season.

“We are continuing to try and improve,” ASU manager Willie Bloomquist said postgame. “We got a little ahead of ourselves in the at-bats, but as the game went on, guys were pressing a little bit, getting out of the zone. In the seventh inning, they locked in, and it all started with one at-bat.”

The at-bat that lit the fire was freshman designated hitter Ivan Brethowr who took first-hit honors, an infield single on which he worked hard to get down the line and get on base. Sophomore infielder Hunter Haas, currently rehabbing a torn rotator cuff, filled in to pinch run for Brethowr. Arizona State trailed 2-1.

“He’s progressing very well,” Bloomquist said of Haas. “He’s obviously not at the stage where he’s throwing, but his legs aren’t hurt, and that’s still a valuable weapon for us to be able to put a guy in there who has instincts and can run and understands the game very well. We want to keep him involved.”

Haas got more involved two batters later, when redshirt sophomore center fielder Joe Lampe hit a laser over the head of the USF right fielder, bouncing off the wall. Haas scored from second, and Lampe’s electric speed brought him all the way to third, tying the game at two runs apiece.

The Sun Devils weren’t done yet, as redshirt sophomore shortstop Sean McLain lasered a ball into left for an RBI single, scoring Lampe to take the lead. Then it was Friday night’s hero, a player who managed to go viral on Twitter again for his home run antics, sophomore third baseman Ethan Long, who kept the runs train on the tracks. McLain advanced to second on a wild pitch issued to Long. The local product from Gilbert then copied McLain, roping a single to left to score his teammate, padding the lead to two runs.

It was the second night in a row that Arizona State managed to come back after trailing to San Francisco after the fifth inning. The Sun Devils scored two in the fifth, one in the sixth, and four in the seventh on Friday night to defeat the Dons. Freshman Will Rodgers opened up scoring with a leadoff solo shot in the fourth for Arizona State, but in order to complete the comeback, it took was three in the seventh on Saturday.

“When you string a couple of base hits together, to me, that’s more of a dagger than just one solo shot,” Bloomquist said regarding the difference in his team’s scoring on Saturday. “When you have one hit after another, and you keep passing the torch, that’s how you start identifying an offense when you’re able to do that. It’s nice to see guys starting to come together and putting good at-bats together.”

“It all starts in the cages,” McLain added. “We’ve had good routines, but the hits weren’t falling, and we weren’t getting check swing calls or anything like that. It’s finally starting to turn around, and things are starting to go our way. I’m happy for the guys in the lineup, and I think we are going to start turning it around even more.”

Yet, Arizona State’s bats were overshadowed by the dominant force on the bump on Saturday evening, as Luckham pitched a gem, arguably his best performance in maroon and gold. The Fullerton, Calif. native threw eight innings, only giving up the ball after allowing a leadoff single in the ninth. Luckham gave up just seven hits, two runs, both earned, as well as nine strikeouts. He didn’t walk a single batter. Out of his 107 pitches, 75 were strikes.

“It makes me happy,” Bloomquist commented about his starter’s performance. “It’s a great start by him and one we needed having four games this weekend and doubleheader tomorrow. We needed to try and get some length out of him.”

Luckham couldn’t have made it as far as he did, without a little bit of luck, fittingly. Across multiple innings, the redshirt junior escaped with just single-digit pitches in the frame, enabling him to pitch all the way up to the ninth, when sophomore righty Brock Peery entered in relief.

“I think there in the second, third and fourth innings, he was able to throw five, six-pitch innings that allowed him to stay in for longer,” Bloomquist said. “You don’t do that unless you’re pounding the strike zone, which he did… He did his job, and he was outstanding.”

Peery filled in and acquired quick three outs, sitting down the last three Dons in order. Across six appearances since his ninth-inning meltdown against BYU, Peery has allowed just four hits and one earned run.

“Brock came in and did his job; he did phenomenal,” Bloomquist said. “He got three quick outs, and if you could draw it up that way every day, it would be nice, but it’s not like that. You’re not in that position without a great start.”

With back-to-back wins over the Dons, Bloomquist has consecutive home wins against the same opponent for the first time in his coaching career. Nevertheless, the new ASU skipper shrugged off the achievement and expressed desire to gain momentum and piece together solid performances. The Sun Devils will look to do just that as they play their third contest against USF at noon on Sunday before taking on Mizzou in the second leg of the doubleheader in the evening.

“I come to work every day expecting to win every game, I know that’s not reasonable, but it’s my job to put guys in positions to win every game,” Bloomquist said. “We’ve been in almost every game with the exception of one or two where we had the opportunity to win every game… It’s a matter of starting to get a little confidence and momentum, and these guys can hopefully start rolling. It feels a lot better to come back and win late in the game than (losing). Hopefully, that gives us some momentum.”

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