Jan. 27, 2007
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State Aztec baseball team had to come from behind twice to defeat a group of former SDSU players in the annual Alumni Game played Saturday afternoon at Tony Gwynn Stadium. The final score of 21-9 was hardly indicative of the competitive nature of the contest through the first five innings.
The Alumni broke on top with an unearned run in the opening inning as Andy Litteral led off with a walk, went to second on a passed ball, stole third and came home on a wild pitch. They extended their lead to 4-0 with three runs in the third, the key hit being a two-out, two-run double by Curt Mendoza.
The varsity got its first hit and run in the bottom of that inning as Cameron Johnson was hit by pitch and scored on a triple by first baseman Joe Spiers.
After the Alumni took a 5-1 lead in the fourth, the Aztecs finally got their offense rolling, scoring four times in the same inning off former Aztec reliever Joey Pace to knot the score at 5-5. In the next inning, Pace redeemed himself by hitting a solo homer to left as the Alumni scored twice in the frame to take a 7-5 lead.
However, the Aztecs took their first lead of the day by scoring six times in the bottom of the fifth behind a two-run triple by third baseman Nick Romero and a two-run homer by Frank LoNigro.
Although the former players scored single runs in the next two innings to close to 11-9, the varsity scored 10 unearned runs in the eighth inning to account for the final one-sided score.
Former SDSU player Ben Julianel was the star of the game of the Alumni as he pitched two scoreless innings and faced the minimum over the game's first two innings. He also went 2-for-4 at the plate with an RBI.
Joe Cusimano, who played at San Diego State during the 1969 and 1970 seasons, had an RBI in his first at-bat that put his team up 7-5 in the fifth inning.
The Aztecs were led at the plate by right fielder Brandon Glover, a transfer from Texas A&M, who went 3-for-4 with a triple, two singles and a pair of runs scored. Second baseman Garett Green was 2-for-3 with two runs scored while LoNigro had two hits and two RBI including his homer in the fifth inning.
The Aztecs will spend the next five days preparing for their season opener next Friday, Feb. 2, against Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo at 6:00 p.m. SDSU's home opener is a week later (Feb. 9) vs. Santa Clara at 6:00 p.m. at Tony Gwynn Stadium.
San Diego State 21, Alumni 8Alum 103 121 100 - 9 9 2SDSU 001 460 0(10)x - 21 18 3Julianel, Aguilera (3), Pace (4), Bruckart (5), McLintock (6), Bernhard (7), Dryden (8), Harang (8) and Manfred, Howard (5), Allen (7)Sewell, Strasburg (4), Kaufman (6), Koons (8), Billings (9) and LoNigro, Anderson (3), Parker (8)W - StrasburgL - BruckartSv - NoneHR - Alum: Pace (5th-none on) SDSU: LoNigro (5th-one on)Att. - 402Time - 3:24