ASU baseball advances in World Series

Kole Calhoun had six RBI, including a grand slam in the fifth inning, to lead the ASU baseball team to a 12-5 win over North Carolina in an elimination game of the College World Series on Thursday. A crowd of 25,001 fans at Rosenblatt Stadium saw the Sun Devils improve to 51-13 on the season with the win. They will face Texas on Friday.

The win was also the 1,000th career victory for head coach Pat Murphy. Murphy is the 12th active coach with 1,000 victories, 629 of which have come at Arizona State.

Calhoun was the leader at the plate again for the Sun Devils, continuing his terrific play in this College World Series with a game-tying grand slam in the fifth and a go-ahead two-run double in the seventh. He is 6-for-12 with three home runs and 10 RBI, and he has been on base nine times in 15 plate appearances in the three games of the CWS thus far.

Calhoun became the fourth Sun Devil to hit a grand slam at Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium, joining Sal Bando (1965), Bob Horner (1978) and Michael Collins (1998).

North Carolina scored once in the ninth, but it was far from enough, as ASU eliminated the Tar Heels.

The Sun Devils will now face Texas at 6 p.m., CT on June 19. ASU will need to beat the Longhorns to stay alive in the 2009 College World Series.