After what seemed like a missed opportunity to open the season with a sweep of Santa Clara last weekend, Arizona State (3-1) wouldn’t have the easiest time turning the page on Tuesday. Facing off against the No. 24 ranked Kansas State Wildcats (2-2) in their first midweek matchup of the season, the Sun Devils were able to tap into their small-ball side against the ‘Cats’ top arms, scattering nine runs with clutch outs to overcome 12 walks from eight pitchers in a 9-6 victory.
“With the offense’s dynamic, we can beat you in more ways than one,” head coach Willie Bloomquist noted postgame. “We don’t have to rely on home runs to beat you. We can steal bases, we can play hit-and-run, go the other way. Good offenses are dynamic and have more ways to beat you than one. That’s what we’re striving to do.”
“It went into our gameplan today,” Isaiah Jackson continued. “Their starter, their Friday guy, lived at the top of the zone. His fastball had a lot of ride. Stressed in our conference before the game to stay above the ball. We were able to do that, get a lot of singles, and move guys over.”
Going up against K-State’s usual Friday night ace in Owen Boerema, the Sun Devils looked outmatched for most of his first trip through the order, going hitless in the first two innings. Seeing the former Second-Team All-Big 12 selection for the second time helped ASU counter a pair of home runs off the bats of Kaelen Culpepper and Danniel Rivera to match the score at three through three, as Nu’u Contrades, Ryan Campos, and Jacob Tobias brought in runs in succession in the third.
Despite being bitten by the longball twice early on, freshman starter Adam Behrens threw a solid four innings, working the east-west portion of the zone while maturing as he went on to dust off the homers and keep K-State’s deep lineup in check.
After a scoreless fourth, Isaiah Jackson would carry over his hot start to the season, launching his third home run in four games to lead off the fourth, after being rung up by Boerema’s breaking stuff in his first turn at-bat.
The Wildcats would answer ASU’s call in the fifth and again in the seventh, as Sun Devil pitching lost its command of the strike zone. In his first appearance at the collegiate level, Bradyn Barnes would walk in a run in the fifth but be saved by Ryan Schiefer, who would strike out Jayden Lobliner to strand the bases loaded in the fifth. After pitching a clean sixth, Schiefer, along with Sean Fitzpatrick and Wyatt Halvorson, would issue a quartet of free bases to knot the score at five.
With the bases loaded, Bloomquist called on left-hander Matt Cornelius to escape the jam, which the JUCO product did successfully with a clutch strikeout of Kyan Lodice.
“I was really excited with Ryan Schiefer and Matt Cornelius,” Bloomquist said. “Both threw the ball outstanding, in tough situations that they came into…Opened my eyes a little bit today.”
What also drew Bloomquist’s attention was in the dark side of his arms shown, as the Sun Devils would surrender 12 walks collectively on the day, more than all three games combined against Santa Clara.
“We knew there were going to be some growing pains, but on the other hand, they got to grow up a little bit,” Bloomquist said of some of the eight Sun Devil pitchers on Tuesday. “It’s time for them to understand that we can’t go out and walk four guys in an inning. Unacceptable, I’m not going down that road again. These guys are young; they’re inexperienced still, but the expectations are way higher than that.”
An unheralded factor of the limit of dagame on the mound also came defensively. Flashy shortstop Steven Ondina turned a diving double-play in the second, highlighting a handful of tough plays made by the FIU transfer to play a role in keeping the ‘Cats off the board. Add his sparkling glove to a two-hit performance, and your head coach is going to be pretty pleased.
“His defense saved a lot of baserunners today,” Bloomquist exclaimed. “Kind of an unsung hero in today’s game. He played outstanding.”
Despite the tightrope walk on the mound contributing to K-State’s five runs by the stretch, ASU was still in position to take the lead in the bottom of the seventh, putting two runners on against Blake Dean. Isaiah Jackson would come up with a chance to take the lead, a similar situation that he couldn’t succeed in at the end of Sunday’s game. Going up against one of the Wildcats’s top relief arms, Jackson’s approach to Dean and the entire K-State staff, for that matter, was an educated guessing game.
“It’s all plus stuff,” Jackson noted. “They threw their best guys. With those guys, you kind of just got to eliminate pitches, and just dial into one pitch. I was just trying to get a heater out over the plate and go the other way, stay back for offspeed stuff. Got to two strikes, and he threw one over the plate. Was able to get it, snuck it through the shift.”
With two strikes on him and the infield in, Jackson laced a 1-2 fastball through the right side, scoring Campos and Karstetter to give ASU a 7-5 advantage. Cornelius would then work through the eighth with relative ease, and ASU would tack on two more insurance runs via Campos and Karstetter to stake Cole Carlon to a 9-5 lead with three outs to get.
Unlike the flashes of brilliance Carlon showed throughout his first weekend in maroon and gold, the freshman lefty came out wild in the ninth, surrendering a hit and walking three. Even with K-State having brought a run home on a sacrifice fly, thus bringing the go-ahead run to the plate, Bloomquist tried to ride Carlon through the end. But after Carlon got behind 2-0 on pinch hitter Carson Queck, he made the walk to the mound and signaled for “Big Tex” to finish the job.
“How about Matty Tieding,” Bloomquist said. “Coming into a 2-0 count with the sacks juiced, I told him ‘you’re the one guy that can handle this situation. Go get ‘em.’ He didn’t disappoint.”
“They had just told me to stay ready,” Matt “Big Tex” Tieding said. “Thankfully, I got a chance right there.”
Tieding would end up throwing four pitches, three of them strikes, including the game-sealing whiff to cement the Sun Devil victory despite the near disaster on the bump.
Having plated 38 runs over the weekend backed by a barrage of extra-base hits, ASU crossed the plate on Tuesday off the power of singles and walks, combining for 16 of such outcomes in comparison to just two extra-base knocks to power its offense. In a spread-out scoring attack, ASU brought runners home in five different innings, serving as a confidence booster considering the quality of pitching the team faced in Kansas State.
“We got all the trust in the world in our bats,” Jackson emphasized. “Past four games, we’ve put some runs up against pretty good pitching. Helps pitchers a lot throwing strikes knowing we’re going to score a lot of runs.”
For Bloomquist, being able to take the win despite the many attempts to give the game away served as a notion of what his team’s ceiling was at their best, with a loaded slate of formidable opponents.
“That’s a good team. We’re not going to have any cakewalks,” Bloomquist explained. “They were right on the bubble of getting on the tournament last year. Lot of returners, good arms, guys that can hit the ball a long way and some talented players. Given all the adversity that we faced today, and the self-induced wounds that we gave ourselves, we still found a way to win. That’s a big win for us, and hopefully a confidence builder that we didn’t play our best baseball today.”
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