April 17, 2010
TEMPE, Ariz. - The No. 1 Arizona State University baseball team defeated USC 5-3 on Saturday in front of a sellout crowd of 4,371 at Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark. The Sun Devils improve to 30-3, 8-3 in the Pac-10, on the season with the victory, which also gives ASU its 48th consecutive season and 50th overall with 30 or more wins.
Merrill Kelly got the victory and improved to 8-0 on the season. He went 6.1 innings and allowed seven hits and three runs with four strikeouts and three walks. Four ASU relievers combined for 2.2 shutout innings out of the bullpen, with Jordan Swagerty earning his 10th save of the year by getting the final out in the ninth.
The Sun Devils jumped on top quickly, scoring three runs in the first inning on RBI singles by Riccio Torrez, Johnny Ruettiger and Matt Newman. They maintained the 3-0 lead until the fifth, when USC scored two on a single by Joe DePinto.
ASU would score one in the sixth on back-to-back two-out doubles by Swagerty and Raoul Torrez, but the Trojans cut the lead right back to one in the seventh with a solo home run by Ashton Kent. Later in the same inning, USC had runners on second and third with one out, but Brady Rodgers struck out DePinto and Jimmy Patterson got Ricky Oropesa to ground out to end the threat.
Mitchell Lambson pitched a scoreless eighth and then retired the first two men he faced in the ninth. After Keith Castillo got a two-out single off Lambson, Swagerty moved from behind the plate to the mound and got Adam Landecker to ground out back to him to end the game.
The Sun Devils complete their three-game series with the Trojans on Sunday, with first pitch scheduled for 12:30 p.m. at Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark.