April 14, 2015
MORAGA, Calif. -- The San Jose State baseball team played the first of 10 consecutive road games Tuesday afternoon, falling at Saint Mary's, 7-3, at Louis Guisto Field.
San Jose State (9-27, 3-15 MW) used a different pitcher in all eight of its defensive innings, while Saint Mary's (20-16, 6-9 WCC) countered with six pitchers of their own.
"I think the pitchers did a pretty good job," said head coach Dave Nakama. "On a Tuesday, if you can pitch like we did, you have a chance to win. It's one of those things; we weren't good enough with guys in scoring position, and they were."
Shane Timmons (3-5, double, RBI) put together his second consecutive three-hit game to lead the Spartans offensively. Ozzy Braff (1-3, double, run, two walks), Brett Bautista (1-4, walk), Dillan Smith (1-3, RBI, walk) and Corey Olivet (1-1, RBI) collected the other four hits on the afternoon.
Timmons kept it rolling at the plate and gave the Spartans an early lead. After lining the first pitch he saw on the day into left field, the freshman doubled down the left field line in the top of the third to plate Joe Stefanki for a 1-0 San Jose State lead. The double marked Timmons' fifth hit in his last five at-bats and his fifth RBI in his last two games played.
The Gaels answered in the bottom half, plating a pair of runs on two hits and a walk by Spartans' reliever Dylan Sugimoto (0-1), who was tagged with the loss. The appearance was the freshman's first since February 15 at LMU on Opening Weekend.
Saint Mary's padded its lead with a two-out rally in the bottom of the fifth to make it 3-1, but the Spartans got it right back in the top of the next frame. Braff doubled to left field with one out and Gaels reliever Nathan Simmons walked three of the next four hitters to plate Braff with San Jose State's second run of the day.
A San Jose State error in the bottom of the seventh ignited a Gaels two-run rally that put the game away. Jake Sweich battled and came close to getting out of the inning, but Anthony Villa's two-out double off the right field wall brought home a pair for a 5-2 lead.
The Spartans looked to have a rally going in the top of the eighth. Olivet's pinch-hit single plated Chris Williams and put two runners on with one out. SMC reliever Cameron Neff then got Smith and Andre Mercurio to fly out, however, and the Spartans' rally ended at a lone run.
"It goes back to us throwing a ball away, allowing them to get an extra at-bat and them capitalizing on it. We didn't capitalize when we had runners on base. Again, we had bases loaded twice and we didn't get a big hit. That's been our deal all year."
The Gaels would go on to add two runs in the bottom half to reach the final 7-3 margin.
San Jose State travels to Washington State for a four-game nonconference set with the Cougars beginning Thursday at 6:00 p.m.