Arizona will play BYU in the quarterfinals of the Big XII Tournament on Thursday morning after the Cougars upset Arizona State 2-0 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on Wednesday. Arizona won two out of three games at BYU in April.
A double from eighth-place hitter McChesney in the second inning and a bases-loaded walk from Bryker Hurdsman in the fifth provided the scoring for BYU. Justus Reiser and Ashton Johnson combined to hold Arizona State to six hits with two walks and no strikeouts.
Reister started the game and pitched four innings, allowing three hits and no walks with three strikeouts while throwing 48 pitches. Johnson pitched 5.0 innings, allowing three hits with no walks and three strikeouts while throwing 65 pitches to improve to 5-1.
Kyle Walker and Big XII Newcomer of the Year Matt King each had two hits for Arizona State. Five different BYU batters each had one hit on Wednesday. Four Arizona State pitchers combined for 18 strikeouts but walked eight BYU batters. BYU left 14 runners on base.
Arizona State had six runners left on base. The best chance for Arizona State was in the bottom of the eighth inning with consecutive singles by Jax Ryan and Walker with two outs. Landon Hairston flew out to left field to end the inning.
The eighth was the only inning Arizona State had two runners on base. Arizona State had the tying run at the plate after King was hit by a pitch to lead off the ninth inning. Jacob Tobias flew out to right field, Kien Vu flew out to left and Brandon Compton popped up to the shortstop in left field to end the game.
BYU beat Arizona 12-5 in the opener of their three-game series on April 17. Arizona won the final two games 5-4 and 7-5. Arizona and BYU will play at 7 AM Mountain Standard Time at Globe Life Field. Arizona is making its second appearance at Globe Life Field this season after opening the season there with three consecutive losses.