It was another remarkable season for the Arizona State Sun Devils baseball program as they posted a 32-20 overall record (16-14 in Pac-12 play), and have qualified for the regionals again. It will be the 4th time in the last 7 years that the Sun Devils will play in a regional under the direction of Head Coach Tracy Smith. In each of those four seasons, the Sun Devils finished with greater than 30 wins including their last full season in 2019 where they went 38-19 (16-13 in Pac-12 play). The Sun Devils will also be looking to change their luck this year after being bounced early in their previous 3 trips to the regionals, and will be paired with Fairfield, Southern, and Texas. They will travel to Austin, Texas for this year’s regional.
It’s been a tough road for Tracy Smith as he was hired to replace Tim Esmay before the start of the 2015 season with the expectation that the Sun Devils would remain, not only competitive, but a College World Series contender, which has been the gold standard for the Arizona State Sun Devils who are historically one of the best Division-One baseball programs ever. In 2015, his first season with the team, Smith led the Sun Devils to a 35-23 record (18-12 in Pac-12 play), and a trip to the regionals, but the Sun Devils failed to advance to the super regionals. Smith followed that season’s success with a 36-23 record (16-14 in Pac-12 play) in 2016, and qualified for the regionals, but once again the Sun Devils got bounced and failed to advance to the super regionals.
Those two seasons extended the streak of consecutive 30-win seasons to 54. It was the longest active streak in Division-One at the time. However, 2017 and 2018 were not kind to the Sun Devils as they produced back-to-back losing seasons for the first time in program history. The only other time in program history that the Sun Devils posted a losing record was 1963. Smith would redeem himself in 2019 when the Sun Devils finished 38-19 (16-13 in Pac-12 play), and returned to the regionals, with many believing that this would be the year where the Sun Devils would return to the College World Series for the first time since 2010, but again fell well short of that goal by failing to advance to the super regionals. The 2020 season was cancelled due to the pandemic. With the Sun Devils advancing to the regionals for the 4th time in Smith’s tenure, the pressure for him to lead Arizona State to the super regionals and beyond has intensified with fans anxious for the program to return to dominance.
The Sun Devils will open up regional play Friday against Fairfield at 4pm Mountain Standard Time.
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