Sac State faced the longest stretch of their season, playing five games in five days. The team made it a memorable run, with their first shut out of the year and two career performances from their starting pitchers.

Friday: Pacific 5, Sac State 6

Friday’s series opener at John Smith Field was a back-and-forth affair featuring four lead changes.

The tying run came across the plate in the seventh inning behind junior outfielder Luis Pimentel-Guerrero’s double down the line, putting him in position to score on a sacrifice bunt.

That bunt turned out to be not so sacrificial. On the put out attempt, the catcher threw the ball over the first baseman’s head, allowing Pimentel-Guerrero to score. A sacrifice fly scored one more run, putting the Hornets ahead 6-5.

In the top of the eighth, Pacific put two runners on with two outs. A line drive shot right to sophomore second baseman Cameron Sewell. The righty dove glove side and extended for the final out, preventing the tying run from scoring.

Redshirt sophomore closer Kade Brown closed the book on the game with two shutout innings, securing his WAC leading fifth save.

Saturday: Sac State 5, Pacific 6

The Hornets traveled south to play the first road game of the week at the Tigers’ home field in Stockton.

Senior starter Tyler Stewart put on a career performance with 10 strikeouts and no walks over seven innings. When he left the mound Sac State had a 5-1 lead, with the only Pacific run crossing the plate due to a fielding error.

Sophomore pitcher Bryce Stockton took the mound in the eighth inning and tried to retain the work Stewart put in.

The Tigers immediately pounced on the reliever, with three consecutive hits, followed by a 3-run homer to bring the Tigers up 6-5 entering the ninth inning.

One disastrous inning was enough to erase the best performance of Stewart’s young career. The 1-run deficit proved to be too high a challenge for the Hornet offense to surmount.

Sac State had one last chance to recover in the top of the ninth, but poor base running wasted the opportunity. Junior infielder JP Smith hit a lead-off double, but was thrown out attempting to reach third on a sharp grounder hit to the shortstop.

Smith’s base running blunder didn’t erase all hope, Sac State still had sophomore outfielder Myles Walton on first representing the tying run.

However, a fly ball was hit to the right fielder for the second out. Walton was on his way to third by the time the ball was caught and needed to tag up. Pacific’s right fielder rocketed the ball from deep right for the unassisted put out on the diving Walton at first to end the game.

Sunday: Pacific 0, Sac State 1

The Hornets returned home to John Smith Field for the deciding game of the tied 1-1 series.

Junior pitcher Ethan Lay followed last week’s 3-strikeout performance with an almost unbelievable showing.

Lay threw seven innings, allowing just one hit, no runs and no walks after facing 24 batters. He said his whole arsenal of pitches worked for him across every frame.

“The offspeed was working better, so you can catch them a little bit more off guard and a little bit more off balance,” Lay said. “We talked about staying down in the zone, and part of it is just letting them get out.”

Lay put on a clinic, shutting down the opposing offense in dominant fashion. The only issue, the Tigers’ starter was putting on an equally impressive performance.

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Senior starting pitcher Jakob Guardado threw a career high nine strikeouts across nine innings pitched, keeping the Sac State offense equally quiet.

“He was just staying in the zone and keeping us off balance as well,” Lay said. “You can kind of bounce off that. It also gets to be competitive between the two of you. When he’s putting up zeroes and you’re putting up zeroes, you don’t want to be the first guy to let someone score.”

Both offenses ran the risk of wasting career outings from their starters. For Sac State, a loss here would have meant they wasted two in a row.

Junior infielder Jakob Poturnak presented Sac State’s best chance of scoring when he reached second. Poturnak broke for home on a line drive to left, but the ball was caught by the left fielder for the first out and he didn’t tag. He watched from home plate as Pacific’s shortstop stepped on second base to complete the double play.

With two errors to go along with the baserunning mistake, Poturnak ran the risk of having his worst game in his short Hornet career.

Eight innings later, Poturnak rewrote the story.

Guardado, who would have been awarded a complete game if not for the tie, was relieved by junior pitcher Jarryd Wood for the bottom of the tenth.

Wood induced an infield pop up for the first out of the inning, bringing Poturnak up for his fourth at bat of the day.

Poturnak stepped into the box and took a deep breath before getting into his batting stance. The slugger had flown out twice before this at bat, making strong contact right to the Tiger defenders.

The first pitch Poturnak saw out of Wood’s hand was an inside slider which the righty uncorked on.

He sat and watched from the first base line with the rest of those in attendance, as the blasted ball bounced off the parking garage in left field. Before the ball even landed, his team was crowding around home plate waiting for their hero to cross the plate for a 1-0 win.

WALK. IT. OFF. JAKOB. POTURNAK.
The Hornet faithful go home happy on Poturnak’s 7th HR of the season (️ 104 mph 395 ft), lifting Sacramento State to a 1-0 win over Pacific on Sunday #StingersUp @wacsports @NCAABaseball @midmajors_d1 pic.twitter.com/fDPon7Fp2f

— Sac State Baseball (@SacStBaseball) March 10, 2025

“I tried not to get too big towards the end there,” Poturnak said. “I just took a few really deep breaths and stayed within myself.”

With the only score of the game, Poturnak averted disaster. Not just in terms of his performance in Sunday’s game, but for the entire Hornet offense.

Poturnak defended his team after the game. He said the starting pitching from Pacific wasn’t as good as it appeared.

“We were getting a little sped up,” Poturnak said of his team’s offensive struggles. “I didn’t think the pitching was too crazy, and I think everyone else agreed.”

Monday: Nevada 8, Sac State 5

Sac State played the first of their mid-week games of the year on Monday against Nevada at home.

Pimentel-Guerrero had the best performance in Monday’s 3-run loss, scoring four of Sac State’s five runs.

In a tale all too familiar to the Hornets, their bullpen struggled mightily to keep the other team off the board.

With a tie game going into the seventh, freshman reliever Dylan Torres allowed the three runs to cross the plate on a hit batter, a double, a wild pitch and a home run giving Nevada the 8-5 win.

Tuesday: Fresno State 3, Sac State 2

For the final game of a long week, Sac State traveled south to old rivals in Fresno.

The Hornets put two runs on the board after Poturnak worked a hustle infield single followed by a couple seeing-eye RBI grounders to give the Hornets an early 2-0 lead.

Fresno responded quickly with a couple of one-run innings of their own in the second and third. In the bottom of the second a grounder to the shortstop was enough for a runner to score from third, one inning later the same situation arose again with a hit up the middle to score another from third base.

With the game tied 2-2, junior infielder Murf Gray hit a sacrifice fly deep enough to left field to score the runner from third, bringing the game to its final score of 3-2.

“I thought we played pretty good despite one bad inning,” Sac State head coach Reggie Christiansen said.

Sac State got a small break before they started cracking bats again. On Saturday, Mar. 14, Saint Mary’s will join them for a double header after Friday’s game was canceled due to weather.