Feb. 13, 2015
LOS ANGELES - The San Jose State baseball team couldn't capitalize on its scoring chances when it needed to in its 5-2 loss at Loyola Marymount to open the season Friday night.
For San Jose State, the loss is just its fourth on Opening Day in the last 29 years and marked the first season-opening road loss since 2007.
The Spartans (0-1) got a solid outing from senior right-hander Kalei Contrades, who went 5.0 innings and allowed just five hits and three runs (two earned). Jackson Berumen and Josh Nashed each followed up with 1.0 scoreless innings before giving way to Josh Goldberg and Dylan Sugimoto.
For LMU (1-0), starter Colin Welmon tossed 6.0 innings, allowing four hits and an unearned run while striking out four.
Leading the seven-hit offensive attack for the Spartans were Dillan Smith (2-4, 2B) and Michael Breen (2-3, RBI, BB).
After Contrades and Welmon traded scoreless innings through the third, LMU plated two runs in the bottom of the fourth. Right fielder Sean Watkins' tripled down the right field line to score David Fletcher and designated hitter Jimmy Jack followed up with an RBI single to right to give the Lions an early 2-0 lead.
San Jose State answered in the top of the fifth with some help from the Lions. With one out, LMU third baseman Ted Boeke dropped Jack Veasey's pop up, allowing Veasey to reach second. Kyle Morrison promptly singled to right field to put runners at the corners for Tyler Olivet, who laid down a sacrifice bunt to push across the Spartans' first run of the season and cut the lead to 2-1.
In the bottom half of the inning, center fielder Austin Miller reached on a San Jose State error and came around to score on Fletcher's sacrifice fly to bump the lead to 3-1.
San Jose State's best opportunity of the night came in the top of the eighth. With lefty Sean Buckle on the hill for the Lions, pinch-hitter Justin Beck drew a leadoff walk before Mitch Ravizza came in to run for him. After Smith doubled past the outstretched glove of Lions' first baseman Tanner Donnels, Breen drove in Ravizza with an RBI single to right field to cut the lead to 3-2. With Spartans at the corners and no outs, Lions catcher Cassidy Brown picked off Smith at third and Buckle struck out Andre Mercurio and Chris Williams in consecutive at-bats to end the inning.
The Lions tacked on two more in the bottom of the eighth, and that's all they would need as J.D. Busfield shut the door in the ninth for his first save of the season.
Nine players made their San Jose State debut on Friday: Smith, Williams, Turtle Kuhaulua, Campbell, Kyle Morrison, Beck, Nashed, Goldberg and Sugimoto.
"It's Opening Day; lots of jitters, lots of mistakes, baserunning errors, we miss a fly ball. You can't give good teams extra outs," said head coach Dave Nakama. "All in all I thought we pitched good enough to win. We just have to clean it up a little bit and I think we'll be OK.
"There's inexperience all around, and on any Opening Day everyone's going to be excited - maybe overly excited - and make mistakes. We had a lot of freshmen out there and there's a lot of nerves going on, but we'll be OK."
The Spartans and Lions reconvene at Page Stadium for the second game of the series on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. Left-hander Jonathan Hernandez will get the ball for the Spartans and face off with redshirt junior right-hander Trevor Megill of LMU.