By Marissa Scott (@marissascotttt ):
San Jose State baseball lit a fire under its offense in a Monday afternoon matchup at Municipal Stadium with a 9-6 win against the University of Utah.
The Spartans (6-6, MW 0-2) struck first and kept the lead the entire game against the Pac-12 Utes (0-11) to get back to .500 overall on the season.
“I know that Utah is probably not playing as well as they would like to play right now, but they’re still a Pac-12 team,” said head coach Brad Sanfilippo after the game. “For us to come out and play the way that we did today, I’m pretty pleased.”
Seniors Brett Bautista, David Campbell and Chris Williams joined by junior Jace Duty all had multi-hit games.
Williams went 4-for-5 with two doubles, his career high in a single game. The senior also leads the team with four on the season.
The Spartan offense had a season-high 16 hits in the game which included at least one from eight of the nine starters.
“Offense is huge,” Williams said. “It’s kind of hard as a pitcher to pitch a 0-0 ballgame or 0-1 ballgame. When your team puts up big numbers it is a lot easier.”
Freshman Connor Konishi made his first appearance as a pitcher this season and threw 1.1 shutout innings.
Despite the win, Spartan junior Tevin Cadola gave up four runs in two innings pitched, all of which were on a pair of home runs. The Spartans have given up five homers in their last three games after only giving up five in their first nine.
SJSU hopes to start a winning streak and pick up its first conference win when they head up to Reno to face the University of Nevada on Friday.
