Mitchell Lobetos
Staff Writer
After coming off a 4-1 week during spring break against Santa Clara University, San Jose State and UMass Lowell things were starting to look up. Unfortunately the winning stride didn’t continue on into last week as the Dons fell two out of three times to the University of the Pacific Tigers and the Sacramento State Hornets in a 5-6 ballgame.
Their first game of the week was at Sacramento State where San Francisco got off to a hot 4-0 start after just three innings of play. In the sixth inning the Hornets earned one run back and in the seventh inning strung together three hits, a fielder’s choice, a walk and a hit by pitch to earn three more runs to tie the game 4-4. The game then went into extra innings. USF was able to score a run via sacrifice fly in the top of the tenth but in the bottom half of the innings the Hornets were able to drive home two runs thanks to a screaming walk-off double, 6-5 in favor of the Hornets. Junior infielders Allen Smoot and Dan James collected three and four hits respectively, James also tacked on three RBI’s. Junior Brock Larson and senior Frank Waliczek were roughed up for two and three earned runs each in their respective 0.1 innings of work.
In a three game set with Pacific the Dons were able to escape with one win. Their first game was here in San Francisco’s very own AT&T park. Smoot and James played big roles once again as Smoot had two base knocks and and plated both times he reached base. James had a two-run single up the middle to take a 3-1 lead. Sophomore Brady Bate came in to pinch run and showed off his speed by stealing a base. Senior Anthony Shew pitched 7.2 solid innings of one-run ball and earned the victory with a final score of 3-2. Junior Mack Meyer gave up one earned run en route to a four-run save, his second save of the season.
In game two of the three-game set, the location changed over to the Tigers home field in Stockton, CA. UoP jumped on USF starting pitcher Chase Gardner for three runs in just 1.1 innings of work. Freshman Benji post came in for four innings of relief and let up six hits and two earned runs to put San Francisco into a 5-0 hole. In the top of the ninth inning Bate hit a three-run homerun to pretty the scoreline but it was too little too late in a 3-5 loss.
In the Don’s final game with the Tigers the San Francisco pitchers were tagged for 14 runs. Junior starting pitcher James Kannenberg gave up four earned runs in three innings of work and each relief pitcher outside of Waliczek gave up at least one earned run. The lone bright spot for USF was sophomore third baseman Ross Puskarich who went three for four with a solo homerun and RBI single. San Francisco looked up to see an abysmal 2-14 final score.
The Dons will take their 8-18 record down to Pepperdine to play the Waves in a three game set starting Friday, April 1st.
The score against the University of California, Berkeley was unavailable at the time of print.
Photo courtesy of Dons Athletics
