Sacramento State baseball started the quest to defend its conference championship Friday, but CSU Bakersfield had other ideas.

Bakersfield pitcher Jeff McKenzie threw eight innings, giving up one earned run on six hits to lead his team to a 4-2 win against the Hornets at John Smith Field. 

Sac State head coach Reggie Christiansen said he compares McKenzie to former long time big-leaguer Jamie Moyer, who did not throw hard, but was extremely accurate.

“It wasn’t like we were terrible up and down the lineup,” Christiansen said. “We hit some balls hard and had some opportunities. You have to tip your cap to him.”

The Roadrunners are one of four new members to join the Western Athletic Conference and have made the most from the move from being independent. So far, Bakersfield leads the WAC with 15 wins and is on a six-game winning streak.

Despite being new to the conference, the Roadrunners are not new faces to the Hornets. Sac State faced Bakersfield on the road last year, losing two out of the three games.

“We had a lot of information on them from last year,” Christiansen said. “We felt as prepared (for them) as we were for anyone else.”

The Hornets struck first in the second inning when freshman Nathan Lukes singled to drive in junior Justin Higley, but their 1-0 lead would not last long. 

Sac State sophomore pitcher Ty Nichols has shown great command this year, but struggled as he gave up three runs in the top of the third inning along with walking three out of his last four batters before he was taken out because of a back injury.

This season, Nichols has been the team’s most consistent starting pitcher with a 2.22 ERA and his coach does not yet know the severity of the injury.

“Unfortunately, it happened at a bad time,” Christiansen said. 

Senior pitcher Zach Morgan made an unexpected appearance with Nichols’ injury and only gave up one run in 5.1 innings.

The Hornets responded with another run in the bottom of the third, but that was all they could muster as they finished with six hits. 

Sac State returns to the diamond Saturday for the second game of the series against Bakersfield as it hopes to get its first conference win of the season.

“For whatever reason our offense has not played well on Fridays all year,” Christiansen said. “We will be ready to go.”

First pitch is at 1 p.m.

Ryan can be reached on Twitter at @rskuhn