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No. 17 Arizona State Pulls Out 4-3 Win Over No. 19 USC
March 24, 2007 LOS ANGELES - Kiel Roling's RBI single in the eighth gave the No. 17 Arizona State Sun Devils a 4-3 victory over the No. 19 USC Trojans in a Pac-10 Conference game at Dedeaux Field. Roling singled to left on the full count pitch with two outs to secure the series win for the Sun Devils (21-7, 2-0). Mike Leake (6-1) earned the win for Arizona State with 7 1/3 innings, allowing three runs on seven hits with a walk and five strikeouts. Freshman Jason Jarvis, who was cleared to play yesterday by the NCAA, earned his first save of the season with 1 2/3 scoreless innings. USC (16-12, 0-2) rallied from a 3-1 deficit to tie the game in the seventh and put the tying run at second with two outs in the ninth. It was only the second time in 10 games this season that the Trojans have lost in one-run contests. Despite a season-high nine strikeouts, freshman right-hander Brad Boxberger (1-2) took the loss after allowing four runs on seven hits and three walks. Michael Torres gave the Trojans an early 1-0 lead in the second after hammering his first home run of the season with a solo shot to center off Leake. The Sun Devils answered in the third when Eric Sogard hit a two-run homer to right with his fifth of the year. Matt Spencer tripled to lead off the Sun Devil fourth and scored on Andrew Romine's RBI groundout. Robert Stock singled in the seventh for the Trojans and Lucas Duda followed with a double to put runners at second and third with no outs. Torres then hit a ground ball to Sogard at second base and the throw from Sogard at home got away from Roling to score both runs and tie the game at 3-3. Sogard would atone for his mistake, however, in the USC half of the eighth. Ike Davis singled to right for ASU in the eighth, moved to second on a sacrifice and advanced to third on a fly ball by Spencer before scoring on Roling's single. After Stock's second single of the game put runners at first and second in the Trojan eighth, Jarvis entered the game to face pinch hitter Anthony Vasquez. Vasquez hit a tough ground ball up the middle, but Sogard made a spectacular diving grab and flipped the ball to Romine to set up the 4-6-3 double play.
Sunday's series finale begins at 1 p.m. and will be broadcast live on usctrojans.com. Notes: Saturday's game was the sixth time in the last eight games between USC and Arizona State that a game was decided by one run...USC leads the all-time series by a 92-88 margin...the first 500 fans in attendance for Sunday's game against Arizona State will receive a free USC baseball mini bat. ASU 002-100-010---4-7-1 USC 010-000-200---3-8-1 |
