Devils beaten in Super Regional; season over

It came down to one game for two teams who took different paths to get to it. The Fresno State Bulldogs, a team who battled through the Long Beach regional despite being a number 4 seed, and the Arizona State Sun Devils, who are the #3 national seed, and a team who spent much of the season perched atop the various college baseball polls.

It was Fresno who looked like the big favorite from the outset, as the Bulldogs won 12-9, to win the NCAA Super Regional in Tempe and advance to their first College World Series since 1991.

Fresno erupted for 6 runs in the 7th inning, highlighted by a 3-run double by Erik Wetzel and a 2-run homer by Steve Susdorf, which turned a 5-5 tie into an 11-5 Bulldogs lead. The Sun Devils put up 4 runs in the 9th, and freshman Matt Newman, representing the winning run, lined out to left fielder Susdorf, who made a sliding catch to end the game and the season for Arizona State.

Fresno State becomes the lowest seed ever to advance to the College World Series in Omaha since the NCAA switched to the Super Regional format in 1999. ASU fails in its bid to return to Rosenblatt Stadium, where they last won a national championship in 1981.

The day didn’t get off to a good start for the Devils, when about 30 minutes before the first pitch, Ike Davis and Brett Wallace, ASU’s two best hitters, and both first-round picks in the MLB First-Year Player draft last week had to be separated by teammates after a confrontation.

Our take: You had to love ASU’s chances against Fresno going in. The Bulldogs were unranked, and were without their best pitcher Tanner Scheppers, who was out with a shoulder injury. But Arizona State missed opportunity after opportunity with runners on base in Sunday’s Game 2 loss, and again on Monday. ASU made it interesting in the 9th, but the missed opportunities from earlier in the game mounted and made the deficit too large.

Another great season and another disappointing ending for a team who had more than enough talent to win a title. ASU had 3 2009 recruits picked in the first round, and 14 players from this year’s squad selected, so the Sun Devils will look different next season, but with Pat Murphy at the helm, you know they’ll be in the mix again.

Congratulations to Fresno State, a good team who again demonstrated why games in any sport aren’t played on paper.

Here’s what others are saying about Fresno State’s stunning win over ASU…

ASU’s run ends in Super Regional [Azcentral.com]

Fresno State ends ASU’s baseball season [East Valley Tribune]

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Tags: ASU Baseball, Brett Wallace, Ike Davis, Matt Newman, Pat Murphy