San Luis Obispo, Calif. -- One swing of the bat in the bottom of the tenth inning sent San Jose State home with a 4-12 record and made #20-Cal Poly 6-5 walk-off winners on Tuesday night.
Cal Poly's Brian Mundell stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the tenth inning of a 5-5 game and smoked a line-drive solo home run over the left field wall for a walk-off.
After taking a 5-1 lead in the fifth inning the Spartans slowly let the lead slip away. The Mustangs scored a run in the fifth, two in the sixth, another one in the seventh and then the walk-off in the tenth. Five runs were scored on the San Jose State bullpen which hadn't allowed a run in its last 13.1 innings of work over four games.
"The story of our year is walks," said San Jose State head coach Dave Nakama. "We're allowing too many free runners and that's coming back to haunt us. We had chances, but you have to score in more than one inning."
The Mustangs got on the board first with a run in the bottom of the fourth against Spartan starter Jason Kakfa. San Jose State responded promptly with five runs on six hits in the top of the fifth inning, making it 5-1.
Michael Gerlach started the fifth inning rally with a leadoff single and a stolen base. Matt Lopez singled in Gerlach two batters later to tie the game 1-1. The next four Spartan runs all came with two outs including consecutive RBI-singles by Sheldon Daquioag and Jacob Valdez making it 3-1. The next batter Matt Carroll collected two RBI and gave the Spartans a 5-1 lead with his double down the right field line.
Drew Bradshaw pitched the first two innings out of the pen for San Jose State. Cal Poly pushed a run across in the sixth inning when a walk and a balk set the table for an RBI-fielder's choice. The Mustangs made it 5-4 with two runs in the seventh Jimmy Allen's base hit scored Peter Van Gansen and Denver Chavez who walked and singled earlier in the inning.
The game-tying run for Cal Poly came in on an RBI-single by Jordan Ellis in the bottom of the eighth inning. Two wild pitches by Kyle Hassna allowed the runner to advance to third base before Ellis' hit.
In the 5-5 tie, San Jose State had a runner on third base in both the ninth and tenth innings, but was unable to come up with the timely hit.
Kalei Contrades allowed the home run and fell to 0-2 with the loss. Reed Reilly pitched the last two innings for the Mustangs and got the win.
The Spartans did have 14 hits throughout the game including three each from Lopez, Daquioag and Caroll. Lopez has racked up seven hits in his last three games while Daquioag has a hit in every game he has seen the field (6).
"That's why those guys are in there," Nakama said. We want to keep the hot bats going. We've got opportunities to get better before league starts with these games coming up this weekend."
San Jose State begins a nine-game home stand on Friday March 15 with the first game of four against Nicholls State. First pitch on Friday is at 6:00 p.m.