It was a pretty darn good catch, especially for a guy who spends most of his time in the infield.
Sophomore Drew Maggi, who routinely plays shortstop, broke off the sound of the bat from his position in left field, sprinted toward center and dove to make the grab.
The “Web Gem” worthy snag clinched a 5-4 win for ASU, giving the No. 2 Sun Devils a four-game sweep of visiting Towson.
“You were just seeing an athlete,” ASU coach Tim Esmay said after the game, which pushed ASU’s record to 7-0. “We asked him if he got both feet in bounds because he was a heck of a high school football player. … Maggi made a heck of a play.”
After outscoring Towson (1-6) a combined 35-7 in the first three games of the series, the Sun Devils needed every hit and shoelace grab they could muster in the finale, the team’s first close contest of the season.
Trailing by one heading into the top of the ninth, the Tigers got runners to the corners with two outs off sophomore pitcher Jordan Swagerty, before first baseman Steve Yarsinsky laced a shot to the toward the right-center field gap that Maggi corralled in the preserve the victory and an unblemished record for ASU.
“Games like that are going to pay dividends later on,” Esmay said. “You’re not clearing your bench, the game’s not over in the fifth or the sixth … every pitch and every play matters. Towson gave us everything they could today.”
After ASU got on the board in the third inning with RBI hits by Swagerty and sophomore Zack MacPhee, Towson scored three runs off ASU junior starter Merrill Kelly in the fifth inning to give the Sun Devils their first deficit of the season at 3-2.
But as it did Saturday, when Towson battled back from five runs down to tie the game, ASU responded with a three-run bottom half of the fifth, highlighted by a two-RBI single by sophomore Johnny Ruetigger.
Towson added a run on an RBI triple off freshman pitcher Jake Barrett in the eighth but was unable to scratch a run across in its final at-bat off Swagerty, who caught for the first eight innings of the game before earning the save on the mound.
“Every game we play early is kind of a test,” Esmay said. “We hadn’t seen Jordan Swagerty catch yet, and I wanted to see him catch and see if that’s a viable option for him to catch eight innings and still be a guy at the end who can close. As you saw tonight, I think he can do it … and that’s a good thing to see.”
The game was delayed nearly five hours due to rain — the second straight weekend weather has wreaked havoc at Packard Stadium.
“Sundays are the biggest games in the season,” Esmay said. “You win and lose the [Pac-10] on Sundays, so it was good to play a Sunday game and have to play a close one.”
Kelly (2-0) got the win for ASU after giving up six hits and three runs in five innings of work. He also had six strikeouts. Freshman Alex Blackford pitched a hitless inning of relief and had two strikeouts in his first appearance as a Sun Devil.
Reach the reporter at nkosmide@asu.edu
