Arizona State baseball sets opening-weekend record
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Despite being picked to finish sixth in the Big 12 in the preseason coaches poll, the Arizona State baseball team looked the part of a contender in their season-opening sweep of Ohio State.
And ASU fans noticed.
Arizona State (3-0) set an opening weekend attendance record at Phoenix Muni Stadium with 10,570 fans showing up for the three-game series.
On Sunday, 3,780 fans showed up for the series finale — the largest crowd for a Sunday game during opening weekend in at least 25 years. Sunday's crowd was bigger than ASU's opening night crowd of 3,529.
The Sun Devils won the three games by scores of 9-8, 7-6 and 17-10. Redshirt sophomore first baseman Brandon Compton was the star for ASU, going 5-for-10 with 2 home runs, 7 RBI and 4 walks. Senior catcher Josiah Cromwick also had a big series with 2 home runs and 8 RBI.
"The thing I'll say about Ohio State is they had plenty of chances to roll over and die and they didn't," Arizona State head coach Willie Bloomquist said after Sunday's win. "They got some scrappers over there that just refused to give in. On the flip side of things, for us getting three wins this weekend, you always celebrate wins and especially a sweep against a team that battles like that."
Arizona State continues its homestand on Monday against Austin Peay, followed by a three-game series against Oral Roberts.
The Sun Devils don't play their first road game until they head to Los Angeles on Feb. 25 to play former Pac-12 foe UCLA in a two-game series.
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-66e6aeb5014b4c4eeac84ca997f034c9.jpg "Ben Sherman")
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his 27-year journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. A basketball junkie, March Madness is his favorite time of the year.
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