The Arizona State baseball team completed its sweep of Washington with a come from behind 9-6 victory Sunday afternoon in front of 2,285 fans at Packard Stadium. It was the final home game of the season for the Sun Devils, who finish an impressive 14-1 at home in conference play.
A Joey DeMichele sac-fly in the third inning, scoring Andrew Aplin, gave ASU a 1-0 lead. Washington responded in the top of the fourth with a two RBI triple from Brandan Berry that gave Washington a 2-1 lead.
Trailing 4-2 in the bottom of the sixth, ASU put up four runs highlighted by a three-run double by Deven Marrero. Marrero was likely playing in his final home game, as the junior is expected to be a high draft pick in next month's MLB Draft.
"I've played here for many many games and it was just another at-bat," said Marrero about his double in the sixth. "But this one meant a lot more, hopefully this was the last game I will play at Packard, so it was very important."
Head coach Tim Esmay praised Marrero both on and off the field.
"Not too often to you get to coach someone like that in your career," said Esmay about Marrero. "Deven Marrero is a great human being and a great young man, and I am very happy for him."
After Washington tied the game at six in the top of the seventh with two unearned runs, James McDonald led off the bottom of the seventh with a triple and later scored on a sac-fly from Nathaniel Causey to give ASU a 7-6 lead.
ASU added two insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth, which were more than enough for closer Jake Barrett, as the junior pitched two scoreless innings to close out the victory.
The Sun Devils (35-18, 17-10) go into the final weekend of the regular season two games behind conference leader Oregon. Arizona State is one game back of second place Arizona, the Sun Devils and the Wildcats play a weekend series beginning on Friday night in Tucson.
"We're still in it," said Esmay. "We still have a great situation, we can go out and run the table and finish this season out as strong as possible and see what happens."