PHOENIX – After a shootout win Sunday against Washington, the Devils welcomed their arch rivals Arizona to Phoenix Municipal for their fourth game of the Territorial Cup series. The Devils beat the Wildcats in two out of three games earlier in the year down in Tucson and looked to be the outright winners of the final Territorial Cup in Pac-12 history. For the Wildcats, they entered the game with hopes of tying the series at two games a piece.

The Devils put up just three runs off 11 hits with plenty of opportunities to score, but were unable to capitalize on them. A three-run third inning from the Wildcats proved to be the difference as they won 5-3.

“At the end of the day, we had our opportunities,” head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “We had 11 hits and baserunners with chances to score. That came back to bite us, and we didn’t swing the bats well enough.”

The Wildcats swept Stanford last week in Tucson, barely having to reach into their bullpen all weekend. That allowed them to use nine different pitchers against the Devils, one in each inning, as the ASU found it difficult to make any adjustments in the box with all the different pitchers faced.

“It’s a way to keep their guys sharp, it’s effective, because we don’t get to look at the same guy for more than one inning. We don’t get to make many adjustments on it, and their strategy was good … I told the guys with our bullpen situation we were gonna hold them to five, and we did, but we just couldn’t come up with a big inning.”

Freshman righty Wyatt Halvorson started on the mound for the Devils, and started off the game strong with four strikeouts and two hits after the second inning. The Wildcats started the scoring in the third, with a solo homer and a two-run shot to jump in front 3-0 after the third inning.

Halvorson gave up another solo home run in the fourth, and his night was done. Sophomore lefty Sean Fitzpatrick came in relief to get the final out in the fourth inning. The Devils got a run back in the bottom of the fourth after they loaded the bases and senior third baseman Mario Demera was hit by a pitch.

There wouldn’t be another run scored until the top of the sixth when the Wildcats scored a run off a sacrifice fly to center to bump their lead back to four.

In the eighth, the Devils showed signs of life after an RBI double from freshman second baseman Ethan Mendoza brought the crowd back into the game. A combined scoreless top of the ninth from freshman lefty Cole Carlon and junior righty Ryan Schiefer gave the Devils a chance to put some runs on the board in the ninth.

“We’re gonna everybody to step up,” Bloomquist said. “We gotta get the best out of everybody, and Cole threw the ball well tonight. He continues to grow and learn, but he’s getting valuable experience throwing in a rivalry game like this.”

The inning started off strong with a leadoff pinch-hit home run from graduate infielder Eamonn Lance, bringing the game to within two runs. After three straight games against USC and UC San Diego with a home run, Lance had a five-game drought without rounding the bases prior to tonight.”

“He’s been outstanding in those situations,” Bloomquist said. “Pinch hitting is tough to do where you sit on the bench all game and not be in the flow of the game and then step up. It takes a big league person to do that and it’s impressive to see him do that at this level.”

Unfortunately for the Devils, junior righty Anthony Susac shook off the homer and mowed down ASU in order to secure the win for the Wildcats.

With the season winding down and only one more weekend series before the Pac-12 tournament, this was a big opportunity for the Devils to strengthen their postseason resumé. The Devils need to win four games in five days in order to win the Pac-12 tournament.

“We might look back and say yeah, it was disappointing, but all the losses sting,” Bloomquist said. “We especially hate losing to those guys (Arizona), but it was a pretty clean game. Our situation now is we gotta win games no matter who we play. This could’ve been an opportunity to move up the rankings, but now we’re in trouble and need to go win games and see where we are at the end of the season.”

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