Feb. 16, 2014
San Jose, Calif. --- San Jose State had its share of clutch hitting on Sunday in the Mountain West (MW) series finale with San Diego State. However, so did the Aztecs who matched the Spartans' seven-run second inning with a seven spot of their own en route to handing SJSU a 13-8 loss.
The San Jose State (1-2, 1-2 MW) loss gave San Diego State (2-1, 2-1 MW) a MW series victory on 2014 Opening Weekend.
The Spartans were in the driver's seat early, scoring seven runs on six hits in the second inning. After Aztecs starter Mark Seyler walked in SJSU's first run, Andre Mercurio stepped up and hit a bases-clearing triple over the right fielder's head to make it 4-2 Spartans. Kyle Gallegos, Jacob Valdez and Matt Carroll also came up with RBI hits in the frame.
After the big inning, Spartan starter Jace Puckett had a 7-2 lead in his first major college start.
In the fourth, consecutive hits by Greg Allen and Tim Zier cut Puckett's lead to 7-4. Puckett was lifted in favor of freshman reliever Michael Wright (0-1) to start the fifth inning where the Aztecs returned the favor with seven runs of their own.
After three consecutive hits and a walk started the inning, catcher Brad Haynal (1) gave the Aztecs an 8-7 lead with a three-run blast over the left field wall. Three more hits following the homer produced the final three runs of the inning, and the Spartans fell behind 11-7.
"We just didn't play well with the lead today," said San Jose State head coach Dave Nakama. "The sad part is we got timely hits too. Hopefully this will be a learning experience for our guys that no lead is safe."
Matt Lopez hit an RBI-single in the bottom of the fifth to make it 11-8. But the Spartans wouldn't get another hit until the ninth inning when Mercurio singled up the middle.
Brett Seeburger (1-0) took over out of the pen in the second and earned the win for the Aztecs. He allowed four earned runs on seven hits throughout eight innings of work.
Jackson Berumen and Myles Richard pitched a combined 4.2 innings out of the pen for SJSU. They were part of a group of nine players who made their major college debut this weekend. Brett Bautista, one of the nine, was 2-for-4 with 2 runs on Sunday and hit .429 for the series.
"I hope our player take away from this weekend that they can play with anybody," Nakama said. "That's a good team over there, and we had a chance to win this series. We gave this one away."
San Jose State continues next week with a Tuesday night contest at home with Stanford followed by a Wednesday night game at Pacific. UC Santa Barbara will be at Municipal Stadium next weekend for a three-game series.