April 29, 2013
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - San Francisco scored eight runs over the first four innings and San Diego State was unable to recover as it fell to the Dons, 8-2, Monday afternoon at Tony Gwynn Stadium. With the loss the Aztecs saw their season record drop to the .500 mark at 22-22.
Travis Pitcher (0-1), making his first start on the mound since late February, gave up a first inning run on a leadoff walk, stolen base, wild pitch and sacrifice fly. The Dons (25-19) made it 2-0 in the next inning when Mitchell Rowan's single to center skipped by Greg Allen with Rowan ending up at third. A fly ball by Bob Cruikshank plated Rowan to make it 2-0.
Pitcher faced two hitters in the top of third before giving way to freshman left-hander Collin Orellana, who was making his first appearance of the season. USF would score five times in the frame as Orellana was charged with four of those runs (two earned) on two singles, a triple, a walk and an Aztec error.
The visitors made it 8-0 in the top of the fourth with another unearned run, this one coming at the expense of reliever Zack Oakley. Of USF's eight runs on the day, four were of the unearned variety as SDSU finished the afternoon with a trio of miscues.
San Francisco starter Abe Bobb (3-5) kept SDSU off the board over the opening four frames although the Aztecs had at least one base runner in each of those innings. SDSU finally got on the board in the fifth on an RBI single by Greg Allen, the first of his three hits in the contest.
The Aztecs added another second run in the bottom of the sixth when Brad Haynal's sacrifice fly to right scored Jake Romanski, who had singled to lead off the inning. The hit was Romanski's second of the day as he and Allen accounted for five of their team's six hits.
USF's Bobb gave way to reliever Andrew Pulido during the bottom of the sixth, and Pulido shut down the Aztec offense over the final 3.2 innings. Over that span the Dons' reliever allowed no hits with a walk and three strikeouts as he recorded his second save of the season.
San Diego State will now prepare to return to conference play as it gets set to travel to Reno later this week for a three-game Mountain West series against Nevada. The first game of that set is scheduled for Friday, May 3, at the Wolf Packs' Peccole Park at 6:00 p.m.