Feb. 14, 2015
LOS ANGELES - The San Jose State baseball team was stymied by a strong outing from LMU starter Trevor Megill and fell to the Lions 3-1 Saturday night at Page Stadium.
Megill, a 3rd round draft choice in the 2014 MLB First-Year Player Draft despite missing all of last season with an injury, went 6.0 innings and allowed just two hits and one run while striking out four.
Jonathan Hernandez got the start for the Spartans and took the loss despite allowing just two runs in 6.0 innings of work. The junior left-hander gave up seven hits while walking a pair and striking out one.
Andre Mercurio (1-4), David Campbell (1-4, 2B) and Joe Stefanki (1-3) picked up the only hits for San Jose State.
"We pitched good enough to win and we played good defense; we're just not hitting," head coach Dave Nakama said. "We have a lot of young guys in the lineup and I think we're very tentative at the plate. We didn't have a lot of confidence up there and we need some tougher at-bats tomorrow. We have to get some timely hits; we just haven't had any of those. We had runners in scoring position and couldn't get a hit."
The Lions jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning when right fielder Marcus Still drew a one-out walk and came around to score on a single by shortstop David Fletcher followed by a sacrifice fly from first baseman Tanner Donnels.
In the top of the third, the Spartans answered when Corey Olivet, making his first start as a Spartan, drew a leadoff walk and advanced to third on a pair of fielder's choices before scoring on a wild pitch by Megill.
That was as much as the Spartans could muster against Megill and Lions' relievers Tyler Cohen and J.D. Busfield, however, as San Jose State was retired in order in four of the last six frames.
In what might prove to be a trend early in the season, Saturday's lineup featured a handful of changes from the previous night. Freshmen Josh Nashed and Corey Olivet made their first starts as Spartans at third base and left field, respectively, while sophomore Joe Stefanki got the nod behind the dish and Chris Williams and David Campbell flipped positions from Friday night.
"We're going to get some guys in there," said Nakama. "We have to give guys some experience because down the road they're going to play, so we'll keep playing some different people and when we get some of our older guys back next week I think our lineup will be different."
The Spartans will try to salvage the third game of the series on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Sophomore right-hander Logan Handzlik will get the ball for San Jose State while freshman Tylor Megill, Trevor's younger brother, will make his LMU debut.