PHOENIX -- Purdue baseball held early leads of 3-0 and 5-3 en route to knocking No. 17 Arizona State's starting pitcher out of the game in the third inning, but the Sun Devils rode a nine-run fifth to a 15-5 victory Friday evening at the Phoenix Muni Classic.
Arizona State (6-4) sent 13 men to the plate in the bottom of the fifth inning, blowing open a game that was tied 5-5 entering the frame. Third baseman Brandon Krieg was charged with two errors in the frame and five consecutive batters reached base safely after the Boilers (4-6) recorded the second out of the inning.
The Sun Devils collected seven of their 17 hits in the fifth inning. It was the biggest inning against Purdue since Rice scored 10 times in the first inning of the series finale in February of last season.
Jeff Evak delivered a two-out, two-run double to open the scoring in the top of the second inning. He scored moments later on the first of Harry Shipley's two hits. But Shipley was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Michael Vilardo's single through the left side. Vilardo had two hits for the third game in a row.
Arizona State answered the Boilers' three-run top of the second and two-run third by scoring the same number of runs in the bottom half of both innings. Zach Cerbo was able to score from first base on a two-out bloop single into right field from Andrew Snow in the second inning after being in motion on the full count pitch.
Arizona State cleanup hitter RJ Ybarra went 4-for-4 with four runs scored. He had a pair of RBI singles and scored twice in the nine-run inning.
Eder Erives (1-0) settled things down for the Sun Devils on the mound, striking out four over 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief. The Sun Devils' pitchers issued eight free passes in the game, but also recorded 11 strikeouts.
Brett Carlson (three walks), Cody Strong (single, walk, hit by pitch), Kyle Wood (hit by pitch, walk, single) and Evak (double, walk, wild pitch on strike three) all reached base safely three times for Purdue.
After finally recording the third out of the fifth inning, Kyle Van Hoeck went on to retire eight of nine batters over a stretch of 2 2/3 innings. Starter Brett Haan (0-2) worked a pair of 1-2-3 innings, but ASU sent at least six hitters to the plate in the other three innings he started.
The Boilermakers close out their weekend at the Phoenix Muni Classic Saturday with a noon ET game against first-time opponent CSU Bakersfield.
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