March 24, 2017
Lineup. #omahaknows #sjsuspartans
A post shared by San Jose State Baseball (@sjsubaseball) on Mar 23, 2017 at 9:44pm PDT
Box Score
HONOLULU - The San JoseState University baseball team dropped its series opener 6-2 against the University of Hawaii in front of 2,897 fans at Les Murakami Stadium on Thursday night.
The Spartans are now 9-11 overall, still in search for its first road win of the season after eight road games. The Rainbow Warriors improved to 12-8.
The 'Bows took advantage of control issues by the SJSU pitching staff. While the Spartans staff allowed only seven hits, they walked nine batters and hit two batsmen. Four of the six runs scored by Hawaii got on base either on a walk or hit by a pitch.
Meanwhile, Hawaii's starter Brendan Hornung threw an 88-pitch complete game despite scattering 11 hits. Hornung did not issue a walk to earn his second win of the season against two loses.
SJSU starter Jake Swiech, who took the loss and is now 1-2, opened the bottom of the first inning with a walk to Dylan Vchulek. Hawaii scored without getting a hit, when Vchulek stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error by Spartans catcher Joseph Stefanki. Vchulek then scored on a grounder to short.
In the second, the Rainbow Warriors scored its second run of the game on back-to-back doubles by Adam Fogel and Josh Rojas.
The Spartans got one back in the third. Shane Timmons (2-for-4, R) and David Campbell (2-for-3, RBI) singled to put runners at the corners and Corey Olivet (0-for-3, RBI) dropped a sacrifice bunt to score Timmons.
Hawaii scored their third run in the fourth, again without a hit. Swiech walked the first two batters, followed by a hit batsman to load the bases. Josh Goldberg came in relief and walked the first batter he faced to push a run across.
San Jose State again cut the lead to one run in the seventh on Campbell's sacrifice bunt to bring Pleschner home. Pleschner recorded his third hit of the game and moved to third on a perfectly executed hit-and-run by Timmons before Campbell's sacrifice.
The Spartans would not get any closer. Hawaii scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh on a walk, hit batsman and two hits, for the final margin of the game, 6-2.
The bottom half of the Spartans lineup generated most of the offense on the evening. The 6-7-8-9 hitters combined to go 9-for-14, scoring two runs and driving in a run.
Kellen Strahm went hitless for the game ending his hit streak at 16 games.
SJSU plays the second of the four game series on Friday, March 24. First pitch is 6:35 p.m. HT.