Box Score Follow the Diamond Dons: FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM SAN FRANCISCO—In what was one of the bigger games of the year, it was one of the Dons' freshmen who ended up the hero. With runners on first and second with one out in the 11th inning,
Nico Giarratano singled to right to drive home
Michael Eaton to give the Dons the 3-2 walk-off victory over Pacific on Saturday afternoon.
"It's been a tough year for them," San Francisco head coach
Nino Giarratano said. "They keep fighting, they keep battling back. You have to give that to them. There's no quit in these guys."
"Every time we made a mistake, we were ready to bounce back. Every time we gave something, we were ready to get it back. That's kind of what we've been looking for all year."
After falling behind 2-1 in the 10th inning, the Dons rallied back. With one out,
Derek Atkinson singled to right and advanced to second on a fielding error by Taylor Murphy to give the Dons runners at second and third.
Brendan Hendriks was intentionally walked to load the bases for
Zack Turner.
On the second pitch of the at bat, Vince Arobio threw a wild pitch that got away from the catcher and allowed Giarratano to score from third to tie the game at two.
Pacific came back with another threat when they led off the inning with a double by JP Yakel. After a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk, the Tigers had runners at the corners with one out.
Houston Hibberd, who had come into the game in the eighth inning, buckled down and got JJ Wagner to strike out on a slider and induced a fly ball from Jimmy Gosano to end the inning and get out of the jam.
In the Dons' half of the inning, Eaton ripped a double into leftfield and got an intentional walk to
Bradley Zimmer to give them runners at first and second with one out for Giarratano.
On the 1-1 count, he grounded one through the right side for a single, which scored Eaton for the win.
"We were down one in the bottom on the 10th and we put together a good at bat after Bradley popped out,"
Nino Giarratano said. "Then we put another good at bat together and we had a chance to win it, we didn't do it. They had a chance to win it, they didn't do it. Then we put together three good at bats in the bottom of the 11th."
"Our back was against the wall today. We needed to win."
The Dons (16-17, 6-8 WCC) will look to take the series against Pacific as they wrap it up on Sunday at 1 p.m.
"I thought we really stayed with it form a toughness standpoint. I'm really proud of the guys," Giarratano said. "Hopefully this is a good turning point for us. We could win two out of three in the series, move on and see how we do."
Pacific scored in the fourth on a two-out double by JP Yakel, which scored Gio Brusa, and gave it a 1-0 lead. That would be all Pacific would get off of
Christian Cecilio. The junior left hander had one of his best outings of the season as he went 7.2 innings and allowed six hits, one run and tied a career-high with eight strikeouts.
"I thought Christian was great today," Giarratano said. "Had we provided some offense for him, that's a 5-, 6-0 win. You pitch good and you don't score and you're still in the ball game. Hopefully tomorrow we can pitch like that, play the defense we're capable of and hopefully we can score our runs tomorrow."
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