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A potent ASU lineup has given the Sun Devils' baseball team a boost when needed this year, but riding some strong early season starting pitching has put No. 8 ASU where they are.

The Sun Devils (11-1) are off to another hot start and proved they are for real last weekend by taking two-of-three games from No. 3 Long Beach State.

"It's important to go on the road against a top-15 opponent and win," ASU head coach Pat Murphy said. "It says something about your team early in the season and it's not easy to do."

The Sun Devils next challenge is tonight at 7 p.m., when Brigham Young University invades Packard Stadium for a three-game series.

Strong pitching performances from senior right-hander Jered Liebeck and freshman left-hander Erik Averill kept the Long Beach State hitters off balance Saturday and Sunday as the Sun Devils cruised to wins of 3-0 and 4-2, respectively.

Saturday, Liebeck needed just 88 pitches in a complete game, facing only 28 hitters, one batter over the minimum.

"He pitched wonderful," Murphy said. "You knew it was in Jered, it was just a matter of him believing in it and staying disciplined. It was as good a performance as I've seen since I've been here."

Liebeck's performance earned him the Collegiate Baseball National Pitcher of the Week and Pac-10 Player of the Week awards. Overall, he's 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA in 20 innings of work.

"It's exciting; individual awards are neat, but it's not anything I'm going to go run all over town and brag about," Liebeck said. "It's nice to get it but I'm already over it, I'm already looking to BYU."

On Sunday, Averill extended his streak of consecutive innings without an earned run to 18 when he went 6.2 innings against the Dirtbags, allowing just six hits. He was chased from the ballgame in the seventh after a two-out error and a two-run double. He's posted a strikeout-to-hit ratio of 8-to-12.

"Things are going well," Averill said about his early pitching performances. "It's been cool to have an opportunity to get in the rotation and be a part of some of the big names like [sophomore] Mark Sopko and Jered Liebeck."

Sopko is another guy ASU has depended on early. Despite winning just one-of-four starts this year, Sopko has not lost and carries a 1.38 ERA into this weekend. According to Liebeck, Sopko, ASU's number one starter, is "thrown to the wolves" on Friday nights to show the staff what kind of hitter's the opposition has in its lineup.

BYU (1-2) is coming off a pair of losses to UA. The Cougars fell in the final two games of the series but took the opening game behind a great performance from junior right-handed pitcher Jeff Mousser.

"He's a great kid and a great pitcher," said Murphy of Mousser, a product of Tempe's Marcos de Niza High School. "I think he'll pitch well for BYU all year, but hopefully Thursday night he won't be that sharp."

Still, Murphy has quite a rotation ready for the Cougars, one he's been proud of during the early part of this season.

"Our starting pitching has been good all year," Murphy said. "There is such a fine line between the best teams in the country and the next tier, and we're shooting to be one of those best teams."

Reach the reporter at casey.pritchard@asu.edu.


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