April 7, 2015
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - It was déjàvu all over again as San Diego State gave up four runs in the top of the first for the second straight night and was unable to come back, this time falling to UC Irvine, 7-4, Tuesday night at Tony Gwynn Stadium. With the loss the Aztecs saw their record fall to 24-10 while the Anteaters improved to 19-10.
Junior right-hander Dalton Douty, making his first career start at SDSU, retired the first two batters he faced in the opening frame before a single, hit batter and home run gave the visitors a 3-0 lead. An ensuing Aztec fielding error and RBI double put the Anteaters up by four runs.
San Diego State answered with a run in the bottom of the first on a walk to Steven Pallares, double by Danny Sheehan and sacrifice fly by Ty France. But that's as close as the Aztecs would get the rest of the way as they trailed by at least three runs the remainder of the contest.
Douty would depart the game after one inning pitched and he would eventually be tagged with the loss to fall to 0-1 on the season.
After UCI went up 5-1 with a run in the top of the third, SDSU answered back with run in its half of the same inning. Pallares led off with a double down the left field line and would alter score on Seby Zavala's sacrifice fly to center.
The Anteaters went on to take a 7-2 lead before the Aztecs scored a pair of consolation runs in the final frame. An RBI double by Spencer Thornton and run-scoring single by Andrew Brown accounted for those two runs.
Brown finished the evening with three singles and an RBI as he was the lone SDSU player to record more than one hit on the night.
San Diego State will now travel north for a three-game Mountain West series against San Jose State that gets underway with a contest on Friday, April 10, at 6:00 p.m. at Municipal Stadium in San Jose.