May 18, 2012
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Team/Player Quotes
TEMPE, Ariz. - Third-seed Arizona State softball (47-7) downed Long Island University Brooklyn, 9-0, in five innings in the opening game of the Tempe Regional. The Sun Devils and Syracuse each garnered a win on Friday evening in the NCAA Softball Tournament at Farrington Stadium.
The Sun Devils will take on Syracuse (41-14) on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. PST while the Blackbirds (25-34) will take on Long Beach State (28-24) at 4 p.m. PST.
Haley Steele and Amber Freeman each posted home runs in the contest while senior pitcher Hillary Bach earned the win for the Sun Devils, picking up her 20th victory of the season, improving to 20-1 overall. Cassie Vondrak (12-7) took the loss for the Blackbirds.
Bach allowed just two hits and no runs over five innings of play with no strikeouts and two walks in front of a crowd of 1,115 in a game that took just under 90 minutes to complete.
Freeman got ASU on the board early in the second inning with a solo shot to dead center off Vondrak in her first-ever postseason at-bat. It was Freeman's 11th homer of the year, putting ASU up, 1-0.
Alix Johnson got things rolling in three-run third inning, smacking a no-out double into left field to set up an Elizabeth Caporuscio double two batters later that plated Katelyn Boyd and Johnson and increased ASU's lead to 3-0. Freeman drilled the next pitch she saw to right center field to score Caporuscio and give the Sun Devils the 4-0 advantage heading into the fourth.
A Boyd sacrifice fly in the bottom of the fourth scored Christina Zambrana from second and increased ASU's lead to 5-0. Talor Haro would score on a fielder's choice moments later before Steele padded the lead with the decisive three-run homer over the center field wall - her ninth of the season - to increase ASU's lead to 9-0.
With the victory, ASU head coach Clint Myers improved to 21-1 at home in the NCAA Tournament as coach of the Sun Devils and is now 42-9 in NCAA postseason overall. The Sun Devils as a team are now 72-43 all-time in postseason play.
Johnson's third-inning double was her 13th of the year, good for 14th on ASU's all-time single season record list.
NCAA SOFTBALL TEMPE REGIONAL
For more information, including the NCAA bracket, visit NCAA Tournament Central, located here.
The Tempe Regional, one of 16 across the nation, will feature four teams in a double-elimination contest, with the winner of each regional advancing to the Super Regional. The Arizona State postseason page is located here.
ASU wins 9-0 (5) against LIU Brooklyn. @SparkyArizonaSt faces Syracuse at 1 p.m. on Saturday @pac12 @NCAAsoftball thesundevils.com/sports/w-softb...
-- ASU Softball (@ASUSoftball) May 19, 2012
FOLLOW THE SUN DEVILS LIVE
Fans can follow the action through NCAA GameTracker, or ASU Softball's Twitter account. The radio broadcast will be provided by The Blaze 1330 AM and available here. GameTracker and the webstream can be accessed through the softball schedule page, here. You can find ASU Softball on Twitter at @ASUSoftball.
TICKET INFORMATION | Full Release Here
All session passes for Sun Devil softball go on sale to the general public at 1 p.m. Monday (May 14) as Arizona State will host first-round NCAA postseason action beginning Thursday this week at Farrington Stadium. Those that have already ordered tickets can pick up the tickets starting Monday at 1 p.m.
Single-game tickets will go on sale no later than 9 a.m. on Wednesday, May 16. Credit card machines are at the ticket booth at Farrington Stadium.