By Dawson Smith – Staff Reporter| Senior Outfielder Jake McCoy final at bat of the game vs San Francisco on Friday Feb. 20 (Photo by Dawson Smith)- Spear Photographer
San Jose State baseball (2-3, 0-0 MW) lost 7-6 in a chaotic game to the University of San Francisco (4-1, 0-0 WCC) on Friday night.
The Spartans fought throughout this entire game, coming back from a three-run deficit in the ninth inning. After Spartan relief pitcher Caden Duke could not come in and finish the inning clean, with there already being two outs he allowed for two of three runs to score in the 9th inning.
Which pushed this nonconference marathon matchup to extras with no team capitalizing till the 13th inning.
In which USF pushed two runs in top of the 13th and held off a final pursuit of the Spartans rally to seal a win after more than four hours of baseball.
The game was a pitchers duel between the sides, as SJSU had 21 strikeouts, and San Francisco had 13. With both starting pitchers going 5 innings of work and a shot at a win in this young season.
“I think it’s awesome like we said in our meeting the pitchers will be a driving part of this team,” SJSU senior pitcher Kyle Calzadiaz said.
This game called for the Spartans to use six pitchers in which they threw a total of 295 pitches.
The Dons struck first, manufacturing a run in the second inning after a pair of hits and a walk put the pressure on Calzadiaz , who was able to limit further damage with timely outs.
“Yea it is just part of baseball, sometimes you are going to go out there with your best stuff and sometimes you are not,” Calzadiaz said.
Calzadiaz was fine the rest of his time finishing with 8 strikeouts and only allowing one hit and three walks through 5 innings.
The Spartans were able to answer in the bottom of the third. Their aggressive leads on base forced USF to take their first mound visit of the game.
Freshman infielder Peyton Rowles laced a double to spark the inning and was pivotal to the Spartans throughout the rest of the game finishing 3-5 in his home debut.
The 3rd inning was just the start of the defensive woes in this game as the Dons had back-to-back errors which could have jumped the Spartans ahead. Both teams finished with three for the game.
“I think honestly it’s something that shouldn’t be happening for our team as we are a team that takes pride in our defense,” Senior shortstop Rocco Caballero, said about his team’s three errors.
In every sport giving the opposing team an extra chance will never let you win and these three errors did not help.
“If you don’t take care of the baseball, you aren’t maximizing your opportunity to win,” SJSU head coach Brad Sanfilippo said.
USF was able to regain the lead off junior LHP EJ McGrew. After falling behind in the count, the lefty surrendered a solo home run to left field. McGrew settled in after this, finishing with seven strikeouts in 3.2 innings of work and allowing two runs.
SJSU threatened in the bottom of the sixth, a single to lead it off and aggressive baserunning put two aboard with one out, but stranded three runners.
The Spartans also had a chance in the bottom of the 13th, after three walks, and a sac fly the score was 7-6. McCoy came to the plate and a 1-2 count and struck out swinging on the final pitch of the game.
The 11 hits and six walks does not do it justice with how the offensive didn’t capitalize leaving 12 people on base.
“I don’t think we won that game, offensively we had some chances that didn’t score,” Sanfilippo said.“We didn’t play consistently great baseball all night, we played fine at times, we didn’t do enough to win, we didn’t deserve to win.”
The Spartans will return home for game two of this series against the University of San Francisco at 1:05 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 21 at the Excite Ballpark.
