TUCSON - Good night, good fight.
Tempers flared Tuesday between the ASU baseball team and rival UA midway through the two teams’ meeting.
Dugouts cleared, but no punches were thrown, and the No. 6 Sun Devils (22-6, 5-1 Pac-10) defeated the No. 21 Wildcats (20-10, 2-4 Pac-10) 10-5 to clinch the season series and Territorial Cup point.
ASU junior starting pitcher Kyle Ottoson hit UA sophomore third baseman Cole Frenzel for the second time in the fourth inning, causing the Wildcat to slam his bat on the ground.
ASU junior second baseman Zack MacPhee took issue with Frenzel at first base and the two benches stormed out to meet each other.
“I know that we would never try to throw at someone on purpose,” said ASU senior outfielder Matt Newman. “That’s not how we play ball. Us keeping our cool and not getting anyone thrown out shows a lot of maturity in our team. I’m proud of our team for that.”
UA freshman bullpen catcher TC Mark was the only player ejected from the game.
“It’s a rivalry game, I was kind of excited to see our guys have a little bit of amped up fight in them,” ASU coach Tim Esmay said. “Both teams were backing each other up, but at the end of the day it didn’t escalate to anything more, and that’s because of the mutual respect for these programs.”
The game action started in the first inning when the Wildcats struck first with a run on no hits.
ASU sophomore shortstop Deven Marrero threw away a ground ball, allowing UA sophomore center fielder Joey Rickard to advance to second base.
From there, the Wildcats played small ball to score him with the run, scoring on a sacrifice fly from junior catcher Jett Bandy.
The Sun Devils didn’t trail long though.
In their following at-bat, Newman hit a two run homer scoring Marrero and putting ASU up 2-1.
In the fourth inning, the same combination came through again. Marrero singled and then advanced to third on an UA error. Newman drove in his third run of the night with a sacrifice fly.
Four batters and one run later, MacPhee continued his hot streak with a two-out, two-run single to center, putting ASU up 6-1.
The Wildcats got three runs back in their half of the fourth, but the scoring wasn’t the highlight of the inning.
After the benches cleared and the umpires met, ASU freshman Mark Lambson replaced Ottoson on the mound and finished off the frame with the help of a diving catch from junior center fielder Andy Workman.
The Sun Devils added two runs in the fifth and single runs in the eighth and ninth to extend their lead to 10-4.
ASU sophomore pitcher Alex Blackford (3-0) pitched three scoreless relief innings to earn the win.
“This is the best feeling, it’s awesome,” he said. “To actually play in this rivalry is so much fun. But we have to keep this going.”
The Wildcats scored once in the bottom of the ninth off ASU junior closer Mitchell Lambson but couldn’t get any closer.
Marrero finished his night 4-for-5 with a career-high four runs.
“It feels good, I’m starting to heat up a little bit,” he said. “And to do all that against these guys is great. It’s the team you want to do it against.”
Junior outfielder Brandon Magee, who also is a starting linebacker for the ASU football team, got his first start of his career as a baseball player.
Magee scored once and walked twice just footsteps away from where he helped the Sun Devils defeat the Wildcats in overtime in football with 13 tackles last December.
“He had some quality at-bats,” Esmay said. “He wasn’t just up there swinging. He deserved a chance to see where he was at and I thought he did a great job today.”
Reach the reporter at tyler.emerick@asu.edu
