The Sacramento State baseball team lost its second straight game to New Mexico State 4-2 on Friday at Hornet Field.

Sac State started sophomore ace Jesse Darrah, who allowed three runs on four hits in six innings of work. However, he would not earn his fourth win of the season. Instead, he dropped to 3-3 on the season. The win would go to Aggie Dan Reid, who allowed two runs, one earned, in seven innings of work. Reid improved his record to 5-1.

The Hornets scored two runs in the first inning, but that would be all they would score the entire game as Reid and the Aggie bullpen stymied the Hornet hitters at the plate.

New Mexico State scored the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth inning and closer Steven Anderson shut the door on any hopes of a comeback to earn his first save of the year.

Hornet first baseman Trevor Paine said when the team comes to the field, it needs to not think about the previous game and play that new game as best they can.

“I think everyday you come to the park it’s a new day and you can’t dwell on what happened yesterday,” Paine said. “So today I think we had a good pre-game and we were loose. We came out and scored and after the first inning we couldn’t string hits together. “

Starting at catcher for Sac State was Josh Powers. He has been playing at first base for most of the season but he was forced to fill in for Justin Lamb, who has been listed as day-to-day with an unspecified ailment. He said being behind the plate he has to be on his toes the entire game.

“You’re in on every play,” Powers said. “You don’t have time to think and you’re on to the next pitch every time.”

He said when batting against a team like New Mexico State, the team needs to be more watchful at the plate.

“The Aggies got the key hit and we didn’t,” Powers said. “In those key situations the team just needs to be more patient at the plate. We knew that we were going to get pitches to hit and we were just too anxious. “

Head coach John Smith said the team needs more hits in high-stress innings in order to get runs on the board.

“The team needs to get hits in clutch situations. That’s something we haven’t done in these two games,” Smith said. “We have had opportunities to score runs and we have let the opportunities get away from us.”

With the loss, the Hornets record now stands at 14-20-1 overall and 3-3 in Western Athletic Conference play. The Aggies improve to 29-12-1 overall and 7-2-1 in WAC.

Sac State will be playing New Mexico State Saturday in game three of the four-game series. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m.Matt Harrington can be reached at [email protected]