Baseball blasts into Super Regional
ASU's Men's Baseball team is advancing to the Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament where they will face either San Diego or Fresno State.
The team advanced with a dominant starting pitching performance by Josh Satow propelled No. 3 Arizona State to a 12-0 win over Oklahoma on Sunday, June 1 in the championship game of the Tempe Regional in front of a crowd of 2,553 at Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark. The win makes the Sun Devils 48-11 on the season.
Satow allowed only three hits and one walk with five strikeouts over 7.1 innings to earn the win and improve to 9-3 on the season. Oklahoma had runners on the corners with one out in the first, but Satow got a foul out and a groundout to get out of the jam, and that began a stretch of 15 straight Sooner hitters retired.
The Sun Devils jumped on top with an RBI double by Kiel Roling to left center in the second and then they opened it up in the third inning. Ike Davis and Petey Paramore had back-to-back RBI singles, Matt Newman drew a bases-loaded walk and Greg Bordes then hit a bases-clearing three-run double to center to make it 7-0.
ASU added to its lead with runs in the next two innings, as Paramore drove in a run with a double to left center in the fourth and Ryan Sontag had an RBI single through the right side in the fifth.
Roling then hit his eighth home run of the season, a long blast to left center, in the seventh. Jason Kipnis added a solo homer of his own, his 14th, and Roling had an RBI single in the eighth to cap off the scoring.
Davis and Roling had three hits each to lead the ASU offense, while Sontag, Kipnis and Paramore added two hits apiece. Davis also pitched a perfect ninth inning in his first appearance on the mound since April 22.
Davis was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Tempe Regional, as he was 8-for-13 with five RBI and seven runs scored in the three games. Six other Sun Devils joined him on the Regional All-Tournament Team: Paramore, Bordes, Brett Wallace, Sontag, Satow and Mike Leake. Oklahoma's Aaron Baker, Mike Gosse and Aljay Davis and Vanderbilt's Steven Liddle rounded out the 11-man team.
The Arizona State Sun Devils will host the Fresno State Bulldogs in the Tempe Super Regional, beginning Saturday, June 7 at Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark. The best of three series will be televised by ESPNU and ESPN2.
The Devils won the Tempe Regional, beating Stony Brook and Oklahoma twice to advance to the Super Regionals. Arizona State is the #3 national seed. The Bulldogs are the Long Beach Regional champions as the #4 seed in that regional.
Saturday night's game will begin at 6 p.m. on ESPNU, with Sunday's game starting at 7 p.m. on ESPN2. If there is a game three, it will be Monday at 4 p.m. on ESPN2.
The winner of the Tempe Super Regional will earn a berth in the 2008 College World Series.