By Marissa Scott (@marissascotttt ):
After being down 4-0 in the first inning, San Jose State rallied back, with a dominate bullpen on opening night in the first of a four-game series against the University of Northern Colorado to win 7-4.
Senior Cameron Keup, freshman Wesley Clawson, junior Justin Watland and senior Josh Goldberg combined in 6.1 innings of relief with no earned runs and six strikeouts.
“Our bullpen really executed pitches and really did their job and handed the ball to the next guy,” said head coach Brad Sanfilippo. “That was the game right there. It really was our bullpen’s effort tonight that allowed us to win.”
Senior Jake Swiech started the game for the Spartans but ended up being pulled after two outs in the second inning. Swiech gave up four runs off three hits and three walks.
Sophomore Troy Watson started for the Bears and went six innings allowing three earned runs off seven hits and only one walk.
The only good thing about being down 4-0 is that it came in the first inning for SJSU.
“To have an opportunity to be down early and to come back and to have a lot of different guys contribute to this, that’s a pretty good first game,” Sanfilippo said.
In the bottom of the first, the Spartans answered the 4-0 deficit when Shane Timmons was hit by a pitch and Chris Williams drove in the run with a double to add one run to the board.
The Spartans cut the deficit in half by the end of the of the first inning.
Timmons, who led the team last year in home runs, came up to bat in the third inning and launched a ball into left field for his first homer of the season, a prelude of many more to come.
With his 19th career home run, Timmons is now fifth on SJSU’s all-time homerun leaderboard. He is seven away from all-time leader John Fagan.
The Spartans took a 6-4 lead going into the sixth inning thanks to two big hits by Aaron Pleschner and Johnny Mendoza in the bottom of the fifth.
Josh Goldberg recorded his first save of the season with his three outs in the ninth.
“We just come out here to play baseball and we dont worry about anything else,” Williams said. “We just do everything that we need to do everyday to win ball games and that paid off tonight.”
The Spartan’s look to carry their momentum into tomorrow’s double-header against the Bears.
“We got our first win out of the way and there’s no more pressure so it gets us going. We are a further step ahead than they are,” Mendoza said.
Junior Fineas Del Bonta-Smith heads to the mound for tomorrow’s first game at 12 p.m. and Freshman Nicholas Morales will start the second game at 3:30 p.m.