April 17, 2007
SAN DIEGO - San Diego State rallied from an early three-run deficit en route to a 6-4 win over 19th-ranked University of San Diego Tuesday night at Tony Gwynn Stadium. The win ended SDSU's seven-game losing streak at the hands of the Toreros that dated back to the 2005 season. With the victory, the Aztecs' improved to 23-17 on the season while USD dropped to 29-14.
The Toreros opened the scoring in the third inning as a passed ball led to an unearned run when Kevin Hansen scored on an RBI single by Justin Snyder. They upped their lead to 3-0 with a pair of markers in the next frame on a run-scoring triple by Shane Buschini and RBI base hit by Logan Gelbrich.
The Aztecs came back in the bottom of the third, scoring four runs on six hits off Torero starter Ricardo Pecina, who took the loss to even his season record at 4-4. That SDSU rally began with consecutive singles by Brandon Glover and Brian Lucas. With runners at first and second, Garett Green, who appeared to be readying for a sacrifice bunt attempt, slashed a single past USD first baseman Daniel Magness that brought Glover home and sent Lucas to third.
A grounder to second by Cameron Johnson for the first out of the inning drove in Lucas and moved Green to second. Another ground out sent Green to third and he scored on a single up the middle by Troy Hanzawa that tied the game at 3-3. That spelled the end of the evening for Pecina on the mound and brought on Russell Holzhauer in relief.
Holzhauer then gave up back to back singles to Joe Spiers and Nick Romero with the latter scoring Hanzawa to give the Aztecs the lead.
Aztec starter Nate Solow, making just his third start of the season, was the eventual beneficiary of SDSU's come-from-behind rally. The freshman from Albuquerque went five innings to pick up the win and improve to 3-1 on the season.
The Aztecs added a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth as they loaded the bases with no outs on two singles and a hit batter. Frank LoNigro bounced into a double play to score one run and Glover delivered a two-out RBI single to make it a 6-3 contest.
With Shane Kaufman on in relief for San Diego State, USD opened the seventh with a single by Hansen and double by James Meador. Sophomore Lance Sewell was summoned from the bullpen at that point and gave up a sacrifice fly to Snyder before retiring the next two hitters with no further damage.
Aztec freshman Stephen Strasburg was called to the mound in the ninth and retired the side in order (two via the strikeout) to nail down the win and record his league-leading sixth save of the season.
Third baseman Nick Romero led SDSU with three hits and an RBI while Troy Hanzawa, Joe Spiers, Brandon Glover and Garett Green collected a pair of hits each.
Up next for the Aztecs is a four-game series against Air Force that is set to begin on Friday (Apr. 20) with a single game at 6:00 p.m. at Tony Gwynn Stadium. The teams will meet in a doubleheader on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. and finish with a contest on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. The extra game is the makeup contest of the one that was snowed out at Air Force in mid-March.