No. 16 Baseball begins 2013 season with 5-4 walk-off win in 11 innings

The 16th-ranked Arizona State University baseball team opened up its 55th season with a 5-4 victory in 11 innings over Bethune-Cookman, Feb. 15 at Packard Stadium.

A dropped third strike in the bottom of the 11th allowed shortstop Drew Stankiewicz to get to first base with one out, and he was moved to second with a walk by third basemanMichael Benjamin. The next better, center fielder Kasey Coffman, roped a single into center field to score Stankiewicz and give the Sun Devils (1-0) a walk-off win in the first game of the year.

Stankiewicz went 3-for-5 on the night with three runs scored and a RBI, and Coffman registered both the game-tying base knock in the ninth and the game-winning hit in the 11th.

Left-hander Matt Dunbar (1-0) threw a scoreless 11th inning to earn the win, while a pair of freshmen pitchers in right-hander Ryan Burr and left-hander Brett Lilek combined to allow one hit over five innings.

ASU trailed 4-3 with two outs and no runners on base in the bottom of the ninth inning, but three consecutive base hits by the Devils, including a run-scoring single by Coffman, pushed the game into extra innings.