Baseball returns to postseason in dramatic win over #23 UC Irvine

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LOS ANGELES— Sun Devil Baseball made an electric return to the postseason on Friday, taking down No. 3 seed UC Irvine in the opening match of the NCAA Los Angeles Regional, 4-2, to advance in the winner's bracket at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
 
Jacob Tobias homered on the first postseason pitch he has ever seen in his four-year career, adding two doubles and scoring three runs to pave the way for the Sun Devils (36-22), who will now take on host and 13th-ranked UCLA tomorrow evening at 6 p.m. AZT for a chance to advance to the regional final. 
 
Isaiah Jackson also homered and added a pivotal late-inning insurance RBI and the Arizona State pitchers did the rest as the combination of Ben Jacobs, Jonah Giblin and Cole Carlon limited the potent Anteater offense to just two runs on five hits with 11 strikeouts.
 
ASU shook off some self-inflicted wounds after six walks, a hit by pitch and two errors as the pitchers stranded 10 Irvine baserunners while the defense made the play of the season with a massive double play in the eighth inning when UCI had the bases loaded and just one out in a 4-2 game.
 
TURNING POINT
Having waited multiple years for the opportunity to shine in the postseason, Jacob Tobias, Kien Vu and Isaiah Jackson led the way offensively for the Sun Devils on a night where runs were at a premium. Batting 4-6 in the lineup, the trio of left-handed hitters combined for six of the team's eight hits, four of them for extra bases, and all of its RBIs. Tobias and Jackson teamed up for a pair of solo home runs in the second inning, both continuing their contributions the rest of the night with Tobias slashing a pair of doubles, and Jackson plating a key insurance run in the eighth. Vu's fourth-inning two-bagger that scored Tobias helped shed a multi-run answer from UCI in the second, and give ASU a lead it wouldn't relinquish.
 
BIG MOMENT
After adding an insurance run to their lead in the top of the eighth inning, the Sun Devils ran into trouble in the bottom half. Having been shut down by Jonah Giblin in the sixth and seventh, UCI put its first two batters on base against the seasoned righty, eventually moving the tying runs into scoring position with one out. A subsequent walk would load the bases for the Anteaters, and force an early call for the closer. Following two strong innings out of the bullpen, southpaw Cole Carlon relieved Giblin with three runners aboard. On a 2-1 offering, Carlon spotted a fastball down in the zone to perfection, getting a hard-hit ground ball heading straight for Kyle Walker at second base. Matt King dug out the flip from Walker, and fired to first in time to turn the double play and snuff out the UCI rally in the eighth.
 
FINAL STRAW 
After tossing four scoreless innings and five total, Ben Jacobs was picked up on the backend by Jonah Giblin in the sixth, who wasted no time in putting up zeroes of his own. Giblin sat down the first six hitters he faced in the sixth and seventh, striking out three and allowing just one baserunner. After Irvine put the tying and go-ahead runs on base in the eighth, Carlon got the ball and kept Giblin's book clean with a lead-preserving double play to get out of the frame unscathed. Staying on the bump for the ninth inning, Carlon punched out the first hitter, but found himself facing the tying run at the dish following a one-out double. Not to be fazed, Carlon kept firing against the heart of the Irvine order, retiring the next two hitters to clinch Arizona State's first NCAA Tournament victory under Coach Bloomquist.
 
NOTABLES

• Jacob Tobias, the longest-tenured Sun Devil with 222 regular season games under his belt, hit a home run on the very first pitch he saw of his long awaited postseason debut. It was the 11th time this season Tobias recorded the first RBI of a game.
• Tobias hit the first home run of the regular season on opening night against Ohio State (W, 9-8) and now the first home run of the postseason.
• Tobias also recorded his 21st and 22nd doubles of the season. ASU has had a player reach 20 doubles five times under Willie Bloomquist and at least one player do so in each season (2022-p). ASU had just two players, total, reach 20 doubles from 2011-21. Tobias led the Big 12 in the regular season with 20 doubles.
• Isaiah Jackson homered for the 11th time in the last 16 games. He has a hit in all but 14 of ASU's 58 games this season and an RBI in 35 of the 58 games. His 67 RBIs are especially notable as he has never batted higher than the five-hole (one time) in a single game this season.
• He recorded his 32nd two-out RBI in the eighth inning - 10 more than any other Sun Devil on the team.
• UCI starter Trevor Hansen had only given up six home runs all year across 89.0 IP. He gave up two in the second inning alone.
• The Sun Devils four-through-six hitters (Jacob Tobias, Kien Vu, Isaiah Jackson) did the heavy lifting on offense, as the trio teamed up to go 6-11 with 2 HR, 3 2B, 4RBI, 4R, BB
• ASU has recorded multiple doubles in 40 games this season. The team entered the postseason ranked third in the nation in doubles and now have 145 on the year
• Big innings have been the theme of ASU's season as the team has now scored in 206 halves of an inning on the year and have plated two or more runs in 127 of those (61.7 percent).
• Josiah Cromwick has 32 base hits on the year and 21 have gone for extra bases (12 homers, 9 doubles), after his seventh inning double tonight.
• Jonah Gibin has worked 12.0 consecutive scoreless innings across his last five appearances. The right-hander posted 2.1 innings of shutout ball with three strikeouts to just one hit.
• ASU struck out double digit batters for the 37th time in 58 games this year.
• The Sun Devils moved to 2-1 all-time against UC Irvine in the postseason and ended a six-game losing streak against the Anteaters in the process.
• UC Irvine had entered the game 37th in the country in scoring (8.2 runs per game) and 47th in batting average (.301) before being held to two runs on fight hits this evening.

QUOTABLES 
Head Coach Willie Bloomquist
Opening Statement
"I'm extremely happy for these guys and for our team. Getting that first one out of the way is huge for us. We made big pitches when he had to, Benny dug deep when he had to there in the 5th to get out of that. Jonah (Giblin) threw the heck out of the ball for a better part of three innings there. Cole (Carlon) picked him up with a double play ball and then finished off. And then offensively we did enough. That young man had a pretty good mix going against us that was tough, held the running game very well against us, so we couldn't take a whole lot of extra bases. So exciting game, well played game on both parts and happy too come out on top." 
 
On bouncing back after four-game skid to end the season
"The first thing I would say is, it's tough to win in college baseball, you see what's going on today and the upsets that are happening. Anybody can beat anybody. So, for us, it was going out, focusing on ourselves and playing our best baseball. We mentioned before, obviously we didn't finish the last part of the regular season and conference tournament the way we wanted to, but maybe there's a reason for that. Our guys got to rest up a little bit and hopefully get to go on a run here. So for us, we've always believed in ourselves, we stubbed our toe there a little bit, but we know that we're what we're capable of and I think it's it's one of those things where the external distractions get more and more, we get tighter and tighter in our clubhouse. We got each other's back in here. We're going to continue to believe in each other and to me that's what makes this special, today being a special game, but you know just this whole year with these guys has been extremely special for me and I think they would say the same.  We're just a very tight knit group and something great can happen when we play for each other.
 
On long-time Sun Devils being key parts of the win 
"I could not hand pick four better guys to essentially be the players in the game right here. Toby's been with me for four years. Benny, I've seen him grow tremendously since we've had him in the past couple of years. Isaiah. What can we say about him just as far as the transformation he's made from an offensive standpoint. We always knew he could play defense, but the offense is rolling the way it is. Cole Carlon just doing what he does and continuing to make a huge strive forward from last year. I give the credit to my coaches. My coaches are the ones that have developed these young men and continue to grind with them, but also give the credit to my players. They're the ones that buy into what we're selling. They believe in themselves. They believe in us coaches and what we're doing. And for this to be a staple win as we move forward in this season, we knew the first one was gonna be the toughest one. So we got that first one out of the way and now we, now we roll. So we're, we're eager to tee up against UCLA tomorrow should be another dogfight.
 
Pitcher Ben Jacobs 
On returning to UCLA and face his original commitment school of UC Irvine
"Definitely full circle. I was supposed to be a part of UC Irvine in high school, but it didn't work out  so I played here at UCLA for a year. I'm pretty familiar with this field. It was just so fun to be out here and come back where I'm from. I lived an hour south from here and there was a lot of family out to see me. It's just grinding through it. I think Toby said it perfectly, we got nothing to lose. We're dangerous when we're like that. You don't wanna go up against us right now when we have nothing to lose like this. We're just leaving it all on the field and it was just an absolute blast. We all competed well and picked each other up."
 
Pitcher Cole Carlon
On recording the final outs and securing the win
"It means a lot. I love each and everyone one of my teammates and just doing it for them. That's one thing that I just wanted to kind of slow things down and just be in the now. Kind of like enjoy the moment. Just go out there and and trust myself, not try to do too much and just attack as much as I can." 
 
Infielder Jacob Tobias 
On long awaited postseason debut 
"It's awesome, I mean. We all have been going into this knowing we're underdogs. Being one of the last four teams in and kind of playing this whole weekend like there's nothing to lose, we're playing with house money. We just wanna go out there and give it our best shot and hopefully go and open some eyes across the country and play our best game as a team and I feel like we are on our way to that right now."
 
Outfielder Isaiah Jackson 
On offensive surge 
"I really think I finally got away from thinking about the swing is what it was. Because I was kind of breaking down on something new, I was kind of playing with a lot of things. The swing was always there, ever since the fall. Elly (Jason Ellison) I think did a good job with helping me understand my body and how my body works and just what makes a good swing. I think when I started to heat up a little bit, it was just the approach I started to really stick to one thing I was working on in a way. But just swinging at pitches I like and I just kind of really disciplined those. Just being ok with a pitcher throwing a couple of good pitches and not swinging at them. I think just sticking to my approach has been huge."
 
INNING BY INNING 
 
First Inning
The Sun Devil offense went quietly to get things underway. Ben Jacobs picked his team up by working a scoreless bottom half of the inning despite a two-out walk to keep zeros across the board. 
 
Second Inning 
On the first pitch of his postseason career, Jacob Tobias led off the frame with the 43rd home run of his Arizona State career over the right field wall to provide the Sun Devils an early lead. Isaiah Jackson followed it up two batters later with a solo blast of his own, his team-leading 17th of the year, to extend the Sun Devil advantage to two runs.
 
The Anteaters answered the Sun Devils pair of power punches with two, two-out scores in the bottom half of the inning off a double and an error. Jacobs composed himself in time to strand the bases loaded and limit the damage to a 2-2 tie.
 
Third Inning 
The offensive side of things brought some loud contact but had nothing to show for it, going down in 1-2-3 fashion. Jacobs then worked a scoreless third, capping things with a strikeout to conclude the side. 
 
Fourth Inning 
Tobias again led off the inning with an extra-base hit, beating the shift with a hard grounder down the left field line that went for a double. Kien Vu traded places with Tobias in a similar fashion, lacing a two-base hit just inside the third base bag to score Tobias and regain the lead for Arizona State. The consecutive doubles would be the only offense on display for ASU in the top of the fourth, with Vu being left on base.
 
Jacobs protected the 3-2 advantage for ASU, notching a pair of strikeouts to nullify a one-out walk and post his third scoreless frame of the evening.

Fifth Inning 
Kyle Walker legged-out an infield single to give the Sun Devils some momentum, but Landon Hairston ran into some tough luck as he hit a rocket that resulted in a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning. 
 
Jacobs ran into the most traffic of his outing after UCI reached on an error and followed that with a walk. The Anteaters executed a successful sacrifice bunt to advance runners to second and third with just one-out. After a lengthy mound visit from Bloomquist, Jacobs dialed it back up and escaped the jam after picking up a strikeout and a flyout prior to leaving the field with an emphatic fist-pump to end his outing and preserve the 3-2 lead. 
 
Sixth Inning 
Arizona State couldn't pad their lead in the sixth, with an infield web gem denying Tobias his third hit and a two-out walk to Vu going by the wayside.
 
As customary, Jonah Giblin relieved Jacobs to start the bottom half and retired the bottom third of Irvine's lineup in order, mixing in a pair of strikeouts to maintain the one-run edge.
 
Seventh Inning
Josiah Cromwick led off the frame with an opposite field double to put ASU in business early. Compton was hit by the very next pitch to put two runners on with no outs. Jax Ryan attempted to lay down a sacrifice bunt, but fouled off three-consecutive pitches to ultimately go down on strikes. UCI then made its first call to the pen with the top of the order looming for ASU. Walker grounded out on a check swing that advanced runners to second and third, but Hairston struckout to end the threat. 
Giblin remained locked in as he retired the side in a mere 12 pitches to turn it over back to the offense. 
 
Eighth Inning
Capping off a postseason debut four years in the making, Tobias roped his third extra-base hit of the night off the left field wall for his second double. With two away, Isaiah Jackson brought him home with a base hit through the right side, with Tobias's hustle home pushing Arizona State's lead to two. 
 
UC Irvine wasted no time threatening ASU's 4-2 advantage, with a hit-by-pitch, hard single, and sacrifice bunt putting the tying runs in scoring position with one out. After a walk to load the bases, Giblin would give the ball to southpaw Cole Carlon with a pair of lefties due up. On a 2-1 pitch, Carlon induced a 4-6-3 twin killing to escape the jam spotless and bring the Sun Devil faithful on hand to their feet.
 
Ninth Inning
With one out, Ryan hit a skyscraping pop-up that UCI couldn't make a play on, which put him on second base via error. The Sun Devils couldn't capitalize on the miscue and things turned to the bottom of the ninth with a 4-2 lead at hand. 
 
Cole Carlon returned for the ninth and picked up a strikeout almost immediately. The next at-bat resulted in a double down the line to give the Anteaters some late life with just one out. Carlon then battled out a gutsy matchup, resulting in another strikeout to bring ASU right up to the finish line. The final act ended in a flyout to center field on the first-pitch to secure the Sun Devils first regional victory since 2021.