Sacramento State baseball lost on Tuesday, in a midweek game against Stanford where they struggled to come back into the game after a huge inning by Stanford.
The bottom of the third begins and nothing seems out of the ordinary, like a follow-up from where they left off against Seattle University. Over the past two innings, both teams were neck and neck with competitive outs on each end.
Sac State is up 1-0 against Stanford at Sunken Diamond after junior catcher Elie Kligman hits a solo home run to right field in the second inning to take the lead.
Stanford then scored 10 unanswered runs in the third inning. It was a long inning that saw two pitching changes, with junior pitcher Noah Lucchesi and freshman pitcher Andrew Overland coming in after senior pitcher Jasper Nelson.
Stanford scored their first run off of a double hit by junior shortstop Trevor Haskins. This built momentum, and Stanford collected four more doubles and two singles.
“We gave up a big inning and didn’t do enough,” Kligman said.
Kligman said their defense couldn’t prevent the abundance of hits by Stanford. Even though there weren’t any errors in the third, Stanford still hit the ball in spots the defense couldn’t get to.
Overland was able to induce the final out, with a pop fly to left field ending the inning with a nine-run deficit at 10-1.
“Giving up a ten spot early is hard to come back from,” junior center fielder Tyler White said.
White said he knew the team needed to fight back to be in the game against Stanford.
The slow climb back into contention began in the fourth with Kligman scoring senior third baseman Jorge Bojorquez off of a double to right-center field. Senior shortstop Gunner Gouldsmith hit a double in the fifth and scored freshman second baseman Cameron Sewell to make the score 10-3.
Sac State cut the score in half to 10-5 in the seventh, when Gouldsmith hit a groundout to second base, to score Sewell again and White hit a sacrifice fly ball to right field to score freshman outfielder Myles Walton.
RELATED: Sac State leaves some angry birds in Bellevue
“I think we did a good job of not letting that big inning spiral,” Kligman said. “Everyone was a huge part of keeping us in the game.”
Even though the Hornets tried to get back into the game, the Cardinal tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the seventh to expand the lead to 12-5.
Sac State again fought back in the eighth inning to score three runs. Junior infielder Jose Ruiz hit a triple to score sophomore utility Jaxon Byrd and Walton hit a single to score Kligman.
Stanford kept the lead and shut down Sac State in the ninth to finish the game 12-8.
Sac State head coach Reggie Christiansen said he saw a lack of energy from his players and believes that could be a reason why they lost, but it was likely a multitude of reasons why.
“I thought we did a good job for two innings, then obviously that third inning. We just couldn’t get it stopped,” Christiansen said.
Christiansen said watching his team fight back to make the game closer was encouraging and the game plan is still the same going forward.
“We had a good talk after the game,” Christiansen said. “I think they’ll be ready to go on Friday when we play USC.”
Sac State will return to action against the University of Southern California in Irvine, California at Orange County Great Park on Friday, April 19 at 6 p.m.
