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Arizona State baseball pulled starting pitcher Cooper Benson after the first inning Friday night due to an apparent injury issue and lost 3-2 to Hawaii despite more strong relief pitching.

ASU coach Tracy Smith had no post-game report on Benson or on pitcher Boyd Vander Kooi, who threw just 2/3 of an inning last week.

The Sun Devils (2-2) led 2-0 after two innings at Phoenix Municipal Stadium but like a week earlier against Sacramento State could not close out the game. Hawaii scored in the fifth, seventh and ninth to win its season opener.

Standout performers 

ASU redshirt freshman Christian Bodlovich threw four innings after Benson’s surprise exit, giving up two hits and one run and strike out four. Graham Osman (0-1) followed for 3.1 innings.

Hawaii starting pitcher Aaron Davenport settled down to throw seven innings and keep the Warriors close enough to pull out a victory. Austin Teixeira pitched two scoreless innings for the win.

Alex Baeza went 2-of-3 including a solo home run in the fifth and score all of Hawaii’s runs.

Highlights of the game 

Hawaii scored the tying run in the seventh on an Osman wild pitch.

In the ninth, first baseman Nate Baez and Osman failed to handle a Baeza ground ball properly. Osman was charged with an error for missing the bag off Baeza’s throw. Then on a sac bunt, third baseman Hunter Haas threw to first for an out when he seemingly had a force play on Baeza at second. 

Tyler Best popped a single to center, advancing Baeza to third, where he was able to score on an Aaron Ujimori sacrifice fly.

Quotes of the game 

“We’re missing signs and doing some things we shouldn’t be doing from a mental state and also in execution we’re getting ourselves out. Our offense is going to come, it’s better than it is right now. When you struggle scoring runs, you can’t play the way we did defensively. If we take care of the baseball, we still win that game. We were victims of our own doing tonight, and it cost us.” — ASU coach Tracy Smith

“Our identity as a team is grit and grinding out at-bats. If we keep that going, we’re going to have a good year.” — ASU shortstop Drew Swift

“This team needs to learn how to win. I’m just disappointed in how we gave that one away. We gave them the second run with a wild pitch and gave them the third run. We have to address the mistakes we made but also have a short memory because we have 18 innings tomorrow. Our mindset can’t be on something we can’t change.” — ASU coach Tracy Smith 

Up next 

ASU and Hawaii will play a doubleheader Saturday with games at 2 p.m. and 6:30. Tyler Thornton and Erik Tolman are ASU’s projected starting pitchers vs. Hawaii’s Cade Halemanu and Logan Pouelsen.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8053. Follow him on Twitter @jeffmetcalfe.

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