Sacramento State faced off against Saint Mary’s at John Smith Field for a doubleheader on Saturday following a schedule change. The Hornets showed up for the first game in heroic fashion, but ran out of steam going into the second after a familiar defensive bug plagued them early.

Game 1: Saint Mary’s 3, Sac State 4

Sac State and Saint Mary’s matched each other blow for blow in game one.

Both teams put runs on the board early. The Gaels hit an RBI single in the first, followed by Hornets’ junior outfielder Luis Pimentel-Guerrero doubling to center field for an RBI.

Senior outfielder Ryan Christiansen hit a drive to right for Sac State’s third run in the second, putting Sac State up 3-1.

Saint Mary’s didn’t sit idly by. Redshirt junior outfielder Eddie Madrigal hit a booming 2-run blast to right field, tying the game 3-3 in the sixth.

Western Athletic Conference saves leader, redshirt sophomore Kade Brown, started the ninth for Sac State. The closer has allowed just two runs in his 13 innings of work, coming into Saturday’s game with a 0.66 ERA. The expectation was a quick inning.

After striking out the lead off hitter, the Gaels got two runners in scoring position on just two hits.

With the tie on the line and one out, Brown needed strikeouts. A deep enough fly ball would allow the go-ahead run to score; anything more than that scores two.

Brown immediately hit a batter to load the bases. A self-described “adrenaline junky,” Brown said that despite the added pressure, he kept his focus on what he needed to do to win.

“Nothing changes. I just try to breathe between each pitch,” Brown said. “You get one pitch at a time and just pound the zone. Fill it up. Let them hit it if they need to.”

Brown attacked the next batter, getting a full count before throwing low and away for a swinging strikeout.

Still not out of the jam, the Hornets met on the mound for their third meeting of the inning. Following the meeting, a Gael batter once again worked a full count against the All-American closer.

Browns’ twenty-third pitch of the inning was higher than what his catcher had his glove set for. With the runners already on the move by the time the ball left his hand, his pitch cracked off the bat with a sound that screamed runs.

Senior center fielder Tyler White cut back towards the warning track from shallow center. With his head tilted back behind him, White tracked the ball against the gray overcast skies that had been making fly balls treacherous all afternoon. In what seemed like minutes but was just a few seconds, White slowed close to the wall and made the running catch against the center field wall to end the inning.

Brown got out of a bases loaded jam by sticking to his strengths, peppering the zone with his high velocity fastball. He punched out two on swinging strikes, but that wasn’t his takeaway.

“I gave up some hits and hit a guy, so that’s not ideal,” Brown said. “I’m mainly mad at myself for letting those guys get on. But I’m pretty ecstatic that I got out of it.”

It was Sac State’s turn in the ninth, and they jumped on the Saint Mary’s closer, loading the bases in just four batters.

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A couple of walks and a hit juiced the bases ahead of Guerrero.

During a mound visit between the visiting team’s pitching coach, Guerrero was called over by Sac State head coach Reggie Christiansen to discuss how he was going to approach the at bat.

“Coach called the time out, and he just walked me through what I was thinking of doing that AB,” Guerrero said. “I was just trying to hit something up the middle and he said, ‘Don’t lower your swing. Keep swinging like you do.’”

The first pitch he saw bounced in the dirt a foot away from the plate. The Saint Mary’s catcher kept the game alive by keeping the ball in front of him, holding the runners in their places.

With the infield drawn in, Guerrero rolled the second pitch he was offered. A high fastball that bounced to the right side well out of reach of the second baseman, scoring White for the 4-3 walk-off win.

Guerrero said he was ready for the big moment as soon as he heard his walk up song, El Carton by Crazy Design.

“It’s what gets me going,” Guerrero said. “I just walk up with my chest out. The pitcher is not going to beat me.”

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Bases loaded. Bottom of the ninth. Luis Pimentel-Guerrero. ‘Nuff said. #StingersUp @WACsports pic.twitter.com/A6VOXxKJwv

— Sac State Baseball (@SacStBaseball) March 15, 2025

Game 2: Saint Mary’s 10, Sac State 3

Senior starter pitcher Tyler Stewart was on the mound for the second game, but quickly fell behind.

The second inning saw Stewart fielding two comebackers unsuccessfully. The first he tried to throw to second to start a double play, but he threw it well over the second baseman’s head into center, putting runners on first and second.

That was followed by a hot drive that hit the mitt off his hand. Stewart lost the ball after it hit him, and all runners were safe, loading the bases.

A 2-run single preceded a wild pitch that scored the runner from third to put the Gaels up 3-0.

Guerrero continued where he left off into the latter half of the double header, doing his best to recover the game.

Guerrero led off the second with a walk and a steal, putting himself in position to score on a sophomore infielder Cameron Sewell triple. In the third, he came up again and followed a Smith double with a straightaway RBI double of his own to bring the score to 3-2.

Sac State had a momentum-building inning that was immediately extinguished after more defensive lapses, deflating an already tired team and home crowd.

On a ground ball to first, Stewart ran to cover the bag, but Smith overshot the pitcher and sent the ball to the visiting dugout. That Gael runner scored on a sacrifice fly to bring the game to 4-2.

“Defensively, we made a big error early on that ended up costing us three runs and another error later on that cost another,” Reggie Christiansen said.

In the first game, the Hornets had a rare defensive gem, putting up zero errors. The middle infield pulled off a few double plays that had Smith executing some athletic splits to get his glove on for the put out.

Aside from a diving catch by Guerrero, the second game saw defensive mistakes suck the air out of the room. The Hornets lacked energy. The usual chirping and cheering was unusually quiet in the second half of Saturday’s double header.

Reggie Christiansen was critical of his team’s lack of enthusiasm in the latter half of the double header.

“It shouldn’t be an issue,” Reggie Christiansen said. “We’ve had a hard time playing the second game this year, for sure. We gave him four runs right off the bat. It got a little out of hand at the end.”

Sac State put up one more run in the fifth, but went quiet after Saint Mary’s reliever John Damozonio struck out five and allowed just two hits in three innings.

Saint Mary’s tacked on six unanswered runs and put an exclamation mark on their victory with a 3-run blast for Madrigal’s second homer of the day, sealing it with a final score of 10-3.

Sac State will travel to Stockton to play another series against the Pacific Tigers on Tuesday.