Adams: Great season gives way to next season

UT pitcher James Adkins bedeviled Arizona State through six shutout innings, and catcher J.P. Arencibia hit a wind-blown, first-inning home run. When the Vols added a fifth-inning run, Arizona State coach Pat Murphy said he began planning for next season.

Since Murphy often mixes comedy with coaching, the post-game media crowd assumed his 2006 plan was just another joke. The coach then pulled out his notebook and quoted one get-ready-for-next-season note after another.

"I saw it (the notebook) myself," Arizona State right fielder Travis Buck said with a smile.

Next season is now on hold for the Sun Devils. They finally scored a run in the seventh - on one of Buck's four singles - then broke through for three more in the eighth for a 4-2 victory in the first elimination game of the College World Series.

Before the Vols start thinking about 2006, they can savor all that went right in a surprisingly successful season that ended in the CWS. They also can lament what went wrong in two games in three days.

"We made it here, so that's not disappointing," Arencibia said. "But we didn't bring our 'A' game here."

That was obvious in their 6-4 opening loss to Florida on Friday and again Sunday. In each case, the Vols squandered numerous opportunities, leaving 12 runners on base against the Gators and stranding 10 more against Arizona State.

UT coach Rod Delmonico didn't have a great series, either.

Before Friday's opener, he made a great case for starting Adkins instead of Luke Hochevar, the SEC's top pitcher. He changed his mind on game day and started Hochevar, who pitched poorly.

You can't fault a coach for sticking with his star pitcher. You could fault him for leaving Adkins in too long against the Sun Devils, who strung together four consecutive hits and a sacrifice fly to take a two-run lead in the eighth.

Delmonico said Adkins had another 15 pitches or so in him and emphasized that Arizona State's hits all were well placed. But Adkins wasn't the same pitcher in the seventh and eighth that he was in the sixth when he struck out three batters.

In the seventh, he hit the first batter (on his 100th pitch), threw a wild pitch and gave up Buck's run-scoring single.

"I know our guys were glad that he stayed in because they had seen him three or four times," Murphy said.

"I don't think he was as sharp (in the eighth) as he was early. It takes some fire out of you to go over 100 pitches in this environment. The adrenaline and emotion, it's very tough to get a kid to sustain and throw that many pitches."

Arizona State's fortuitous eighth had as much to do with listening as pitching or hitting. Throughout the game, Murphy had tried to convince his right-handed hitters not to be tempted by a favorable wind.

"That wind was blowing out to left, all those right-handed hitters were trying to go to left field," Murphy said. "I don't care what way the wind is blowing, you've got to go to the right side."

The Sun Devils finally got the message in the eighth. Three of their four base hits went to right field.

"We had a plan that inning," Murphy said. "We laid off that pitch down and in and got a pitch we could hit to the right side."

Once Arizona State went right, UT didn't have a counterattack. The Vols managed only a single by Rob Fitzgerald in the eighth and went down in order in the ninth.

"In the eighth inning, they changed the direction of the ball and found the holes," Delmonico said. "They did a good job in that inning, and that was the game."

It was the game, but not the season.

"This is the best year I've had as a coach - either a head coach or assistant coach," Delmonico said. "What this team has meant to me will be hard to top."

As Delmonico weighed the merits of an entire season against one disappointing afternoon, two of his best players were seated a few feet away. Adkins was 10-5 in his first college season; Arencibia, who batted .322 with 14 home runs, also is a freshman. When Delmonico begins planning for 2006, Adkins and Arencibia will be at the top of his list.

As for the Sun Devils, next season will have to wait.