The Sacramento State baseball team broke a three-game losing streak Tuesday afternoon when it beat the Pacific Tigers 14-6 at Hornet Field. The Hornets erupted for eight runs in the bottom of the third inning propelling them to their third win of the season, improving to 3-8. With the loss, the Tigers dropped to 2-11 in the 2008 campaign.

Heading into the bottom of the third down 4-3 to the Tigers, Hornet junior left fielder Gabe Jacobo hit a lead-off single to start the eventual scoring onslaught. Jacobo scored on senior right fielder Brian Boyd’s single to tie up the game at four apiece. Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, Jacobo hit a grand slam, his third home run of the season, to give the Hornets a four-run lead.

Sac State was able to score more runs in the third inning of today’s ballgame than they did during their three-game losing streak, when they scored only seven runs.

The Hornets never relinquished the lead with the help of freshman pitcher Trevor Paine, who earned his first win of his career. Paine replaced junior starting pitcher Nick Buchta in the third inning and only allowed one hit in two and a third scoreless innings.

“(Paine) was clutch. He came in when there were a lot of runners on,” senior center fielder Ryan Blair said. “Minimize the damage is what he did. He kept us in the ballgame and we were able to come back and score eight and kind of go on from there.”

Hornet senior third baseman Wes Oberlin went 2 for 4 with four RBIs, three of which came on his three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth, his second of the season.

Blair said that it was a good win for the Hornets, who will enter conference play this coming weekend when they travel to San Jose to take on the Spartans in a four-game set. Friday’s game starts at 6 p.m. at Municipal Stadium.

“Our offense is finally rolling again; we’ve had a few bad stretches the past couple of days with the offense. I think today we had a good win – everything came together,” Blair said.

Andrew Eggers can be reached at [email protected]