Rupp drove Mitchell Lambson’s first pitch of the seventh inning over the right-field wall to give the Longhorns the lead. He also hit a three-run homer to start Texas’ comeback in the fourth.
Top-seeded Texas (48-14-1) is 2-0 in the CWS and advanced to the Bracket 2 final on Friday. The Longhorns need one more win to reach next week’s best-of-three championship round. They will play either ASU (50-13) or North Carolina on Friday.
Freshman and former Rogers standout Taylor Jungmann (10-3) earned his second CWS win in relief, holding ASU to two hits in 5 2/3 shutout innings. Lambson (9-4) took the loss.
An anticipated pitchers duel between the nation’s top two staffs never materialized. Arizona State came in with a 2.76 ERA and Texas was at 2.86.
Texas jumped on ASU star Mike Leake for six runs in the fourth and finished with 15 hits in a game that lasted 4 hours, 4 minutes.
Leake, the No. 8 pick by the Cincinnati Reds and the Pac-10 pitcher of the year, had come in with a 1.36 ERA that ranked second only to San Diego State star and No. 1 overall draft pick Stephen Strasburg.
The six runs were the most given up this season by Leake, whose 3 1/3 innings marked the shortest of his 17 starts. He had gone at least seven innings in his previous 15 starts and hadn’t gone fewer than six until Tuesday. He gave up eight hits and walked two.
Texas sophomore Chance Ruffin was chased with none out in the third for the shortest start of his career.
Jungman, who got two outs in Sunday’s 7-6 win over Southern Mississippi, struck out six, walked one and allowed only a single to Kole Calhoun in the sixth and Johnny Ruettiger’s infield hit in the ninth.
Kevin Keys’ double and Brandon Loy’s two-run single in the eighth provided some insurance for the Longhorns.
