Several factors drew fans to a packed-out Phoenix Municipal Stadium on Friday night. First, a top 100-ranked prospect took the mound: Arizona State junior left-handed pitcher Ben Jacobs started for the Sun Devils. Additionally, the in-state rivalry between ASU and Arizona added to the evening’s allure, with the matchup nearly always producing fireworks.
Both teams held similar records and sized up evenly, considering the Wildcats just dropped out of D1 Baseball’s top 25 rankings. Meanwhile, the Sun Devils, following last weekend’s sweep of Utah, ranked 24th.
Despite ASU’s 8-5 loss in game one of the series, 7,084 fans packed Muni for a sellout and its largest crowd to date. Among those, 1,320 students filed in to break the student attendance record and cheer on the Sun Devils. The previous record was set on February 28th against Minnesota when 750 students were in attendance.
Sun Devil senior first baseman Jacob Tobias acknowledged the fans’ impressive turnout this season.
“It’s been awesome, with this being my fourth year here being able to get this environment and these experiences are honestly life-changing,” Tobias said. “Being able to see the support growing over the years has been awesome, I hope this is only the beginning for the baseball program.”
The game went back and forth with lead changes keeping the crowd on edge. In the later stages of the game, the players engaged in a war of words with each other which provoked the ASU fans to get involved. Ultimately, nothing boiled over but the excitement factor remained abundantly present.
“These are extremely entertaining games and they are a lot of fun,” Sun Devil head coach Willie Bloomquist said. “Both teams are playing hard, the fan support has been tremendous and we are very appreciative of it and we hope they keep coming out and supporting us and seeing good baseball.”
The Arizona State players hope this trend of high attendance continues, and with the team 10 games over .500 and contending near the top of their conference, the atmosphere could turn into something special down the stretch.
“The crowd was awesome, at the end of the day the result wasn’t there but we hope they keep supporting us and bringing those types of crowds and making something special happen,” said Tobias.
ASU has 14 more home games on the schedule, 11 of which are conference matchups. The games are becoming increasingly meaningful, and the valley seems to be rallying around its baseball program once more.
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