April 12, 2015
San Diego, Calif. -- Emma Entzminger's seventh inning RBI double tied San José State's game at San Diego State, 2-2, but the Spartans left five runners on in two of the final three frames and lost 3-2 in the ninth.
Trailing 2-1 entering the top of the seventh, Taylor Purdy (1-for-4, R) singled. Entzminger then smoked a shot to the right center gap and Purdy was off to the races. She came all the way around to score and tie the game. Two batters later, with Nicole Schultz on first and Entzminger (1-for-4, RBI) on second, Michelle Cox flied out advancing Entzminger to third. A groundout then moved Schultz to second. Jessie Hufstetler walked to load the bases, but Sharon-Renae Estrada (1-for-3) hit into a fielder's choice to end the threat and leave the bases loaded.
In the eighth, Alyssa Martinez reached on an error by Aztecs third baseman Kayla Bufardeci. Erin Rodriguez (1-for-2, R) followed Martinez with a walk and both runners moved into scoring position on a wild pitch.
The Spartans had three chances to drive in the go-ahead run, but a shallow fly to right center, followed by a ground out and line out ended the threat with both runners stranded.
In the bottom of the ninth, San Diego State (28-16, 11-4 MW) had the softball gods shining on them. After an eight pitch at bat Kayla Jordan earned a walk and a sacrifice bunt moved her into scoring position. On the first pitch of the next at bat, Entzminger attempted to pick Jordan off of second after she wandered to bit far off the bag. The throw hit Jordan and ricocheted into the outfield allowing her to get to third with one out.
Allison Lang pitched around Lorena Bauer and faced Jenavee Peres with runners on the corners. Peres crushed a solo shot to dead center field on Friday night and scored the first to two Aztecs runs in the second inning on her second solo bomb of the series.
But in the ninth, she laid down a bunt with Jordan coming down the line on the play. Lang got to the ball in time, but couldn't make a successful exchange with Entzminger at home and San Diego State took the game 3-2 in nine innings.
It was San José State's fourth extra innings game of the year and SDSU's first. The Spartans are 2-2 in those contests.
SJSU (28-15, 8-4 MW) got on the board in the second inning. Rodriguez singled to open the frame and advanced to second, and then third on consecutive groundouts. Schultz drove her in with an RBI double to right center for a 1-0 lead, and marked the third time in the three-game set that San José State struck first.
After combining for 30 runs in the first two games, the teams pushed just five across on Sunday. Both sides had multiple opportunities to blow the game open, but just couldn't get the clutch hit. SJSU ended up leaving 11 runners on base and San Diego State left 12.
Both Lang and SDSU's Erica Romero started their third game in a row. Lang (10-8) scattered eight hits and allowed three runs, two earned. Romero (26-13) got the win giving up seven hits and two earned runs.
With four weeks left in the season, San José State, Fresno State and San Diego State are tied in the loss column with four each. However, the Spartans have the tiebreaker on the Bulldogs and Aztecs, having taken two-of-three from each.
San Diego State 3, San Jose State 2 (04-12-15 at San Diego, Calif.)
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San Jose State...... 010 000 100 - 2 7 2 (28-15, 8-4 MW)
San Diego State..... 020 000 001 - 3 8 2 (28-16, 11-4 MW)
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Pitchers: San Jose State - Lang, Allison and Entzminger, Emma.
San Diego State - ROMERO and PERES.
Win-ROMERO(26-13) Loss-LANG, Allison(10-8)
T-2:18 A-265 HR SDSU - PERES (5).