Three-thousand miles from home, away from the islands since May 17, the Hawaii baseball team felt it had come too far to go down without a fight.
The Rainbows provided plenty of punch in the Tempe Regional title game on Sunday at sold-out Packard Stadium, putting No. 1 ASU on the ropes despite winning an elimination game over San Diego in near 110-degree heat a couple hours earlier.
But tested for the first time this postseason, the Sun Devils responded, riding a pair of home runs and a clutch two-run double by sophomore Drew Maggi to top Hawaii 8-4, clinching the Tempe Regional.
ASU will host a Super Regional series, beginning Friday or Saturday, against the winner of the Fayetteville Regional title game between Arkansas and Washington State on Monday. WSU is the only team to win a series over ASU this season.
“We came into this thing wanting to win three in a row and that was the goal,” senior Kole Calhoun said. “We went out there and performed well. That's been the plan from the beginning so to be able to go out and execute it is pretty exciting.”
Hawaii got to Borup for four runs in the first four innings with Sean Montplaisir's two-run homer in the fourth giving the Rainbows a 4-3 lead. It was short-lived.
Maggi broke a 1-for-11 slump in the bottom of the frame by delivering a ball into the left-center gap that plated senior Raoul Torrez and freshman Andrew Aplin and gave ASU a 5-4 edge. It was all the scoring the Sun Devils (50-9) would need. Sophomore Austin Barnes put the two runners into scoring position with a well-executed sacrifice bunt.
“That's just good team baseball,” ASU coach Tim Esmay said. “We're basically telling Maggi at that point, 'We're setting it up for you.' [Barnes] coming up there and getting the bunt down and moving the runners over and then [Maggi] coming up with a fearless [at-bat] — that's a big deal.”
Borup battled through scoreless fifth and sixth innings before handing the ball to sophomore Mitchell Lambson, who worked two perfect frames. Sophomore Jordan Swagerty worked a scoreless ninth.
“It's frustrating when you give up runs, but at the same point our team puts up runs to answer back and it motivates me,” Borup said. “About the fourth inning I said, 'Look, you've got to bear down. This is the playoffs; you've got to focus on every pitch.”
With the game tied 2-2 in the third, Calhoun belted his third homer in as many games, his 16th of the season — a towering blast that found pavement on Rural Road.
Hawaii recaptured the lead on Montplaisir's dinger before Maggi's clutch knock put ASU in front for good.
Deven Marrero continued his blistering pace with a two-run home run to left in the fifth to put ASU in front 7-4, providing a comfortable working margin — not that it needed one — for the bullpen, which didn't allow a run in six innings of work during the regional.
MacPhee plated sophomore Austin Barnes on a bloop single to left in the eighth to cap the scoring for the Sun Devils.
Borup had to labor through some early struggles, throwing 24 pitches in a first inning that saw Hawaii take a 1-0 lead on a sacrifice fly. Still, Esmay was impressed with the way the sophomore battled through his outing, one that ended after yielding four runs in six innings.
“Jake was a warrior tonight,” the coach said. “The way he battled … we said before the game that we were going to take some punches from these guys. They gave us their best shot and we did a good job of matching it and staying with it — very good ball game today.”
