Baseball comes through with win in extras over St. Mary’s

Baseball comes through with win in extras over St. Marys

State Hornet Staff

It took an extra inning, but Sacramento State’s baseball team got back on the winning track Tuesday afternoon.

After losing two out of three games to Fresno State this past weekend, the Hornets came back from being down in the first inning to defeat Saint Mary’s, 2-1 in 10 innings.

Sophomore pitcher Hunter Greenwood pitched six innings and only gave up a season low one earned run. He also struck out three.

“Hunter Greenwood pitched great,” said head coach Reggie Christiansen. “He did a good job, threw strikes and gave us a chance. That’s all we asked of him.”

Even though Greenwood was taken out because of his high pitch count, he said he felt like he was dialed in on the mound.

“I did a better job keeping the ball low,” Greenwood said. “I did a great job, but some of the relievers came in and had my back. They did a really good job behind me.”

The combination of relievers Ty Nichols, Tyler Hoelzen, R.J. Davis and Brandon Creel pitched four innings and only allowed two hits and struck out five.

The Hornets scored their first run in the seventh inning when right fielder David Del Grande drove in Rhys Hoskins from third base.

Sac State had chances to take the lead in the eighth and ninth innings with runners on base, but could not come through with the clutch hit.

Not until the game was in extra innings did Derrick Chung hit a sacrifice fly to center field to give the Hornets the victory.

“I think it was important to get this win because of the way we played,” Christiansen said. “We played pretty poorly, quite honestly, and gave them a lot of opportunities but at the end of the day it’s about winning and that is what good teams do.”

With the Western Athletic Conference tournament in just over two weeks, Christiansen said he cannot look too far ahead.

“Our focus is on Friday,” Christiansen said. “That is all we are going to worry about.”

Hoskins suffered a sprained ankle during the fifth inning against Saint Mary’s while diving back to first base.

Hoskins did stay in the game and both he and his coach said that he should not miss any playing time.

The freshman leads the team with nine home runs and 44 RBIs.

Sac State will play their final conference series of the season starting Friday when it hosts the University of Hawaii.  

First pitch is at 3 p.m.

Ryan Kuhn can be reached at @rskuhn