San Jose State gave up 14 hits and made four errors in a 9-4 Western Athletic Conference loss at UT Arlington on Saturday.
Trailing 2-1 after three innings, the Spartans allowed runs in four consecutive frames starting in the fourth. SJSU (11-24, 5-6 WAC) starter D.J.Slaton left the game after six innings, giving up five earned runs on 10 hits. He fell to 2-5 with the loss.
"We just got outplayed today," said San Jose State head coach Dave Nakama. "We worked so hard to get to 5-4 in the conference and then we get here and play bad. It's frustrating."
Greg McCall's third homer of the season, a solo shot, started the scoring run for UTA (19-15, 8-3 WAC) in the fourth inning. Sheldon Daquioag and Jacob Valdez collected RBI in the sixth and made it a 6-3 game. But a three-run seventh inning for the Mavericks put San Jose State in a 9-3 hole with just two innings ago.
Zack Thompson improved to 4-2 on the year after pitching 5.1 innings allowing seven hits and three earned runs.
Michael Gerlach had three of the Spartans' 10 hits in the game. He hit an RBI-double in the third inning and came around to score in the sixth. Ricky Acosta and Valdez each had one hit to extend their hitting streaks to 11 games.
"Tomorrow is a matter of survival," Nakama said. "We cannot afford to be swept."
San Jose State will send right-hander Kyle Hassna (2-4, 1.30) to the hill tomorrow in game three of the series starting at 12:00 p.m. CST.