For four innings, it looked like Stanford was going to march into the stadium of the No. 6 team in the country and leave game one with a statement win.
Unfortunately for the Cardinal, Arizona State just wouldn’t say die, and a rally in the bottom of the ninth against Stanford hurlers Tyler Thorne and Colton Hock was capped off by a pinch-hit, two-run, walk-off single by Christopher Beall to give the Sun Devils a 7-6 win.
Brett Hanewich didn’t have his best stuff early on, allowing sacrifice flies in the first and second innings to net two early ASU runs before the Sun Devils hit him around for two more runs in the third. However, he settled down after that and Stanford’s offense got hot.
The Cardinal put up a four-spot in the fifth inning with a slick two-out rally to take the lead, with an Austin Barr two-run single keeping up the junior’s recent hot streak and pushing across the tying run and a Matt Winaker RBI triple netting Stanford the go-ahead run.
Stanford would later add an insurance run in the sixth and could have in the ninth, but Mikey Diekroeger was thrown out at the plate by Arizona State left fielder Jake Peevyhouse. The lack of that final run proved critical for the Cardinal in the bottom of the ninth as Thorne and Hock couldn’t hold the lead.
Stanford and Arizona State will duel in game two tomorrow night at 6:30 p.m.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dpark027 ‘at’ stanford.edu.