Box Score Follow the Diamond Dons: FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM SAN FRANCISCO—The Dons had a chance to rally late but two four-run innings from Pacific was too much to overcome as they fell 12-9 in West Coast Conference action on Sunday afternoon.
"It's tough," San Francisco head coach
Nino Giarratano said. "We couldn't execute pitches, we couldn't get them out. All together it was an effort where we never quit…. We just played from behind for so long and we played from behind and we keep giving up runs and nobody can stop the bleeding."
"We've got to get better."
San Francisco (16-18, 6-9 WCC) has dropped three of its four conference series at home and will now hit the road for two of the next three series, beginning with first place Pepperdine on Thursday.
"We play better away from home so hopefully we get away from home, we play a little bit better," Giarratano said. "It's winding down for us. If we don't put it together real soon, our season is going to be over. We're going to have to pack it up and look at next year."
Trailing 12-5 in the ninth, the Dons started to put together one final rally. After back-to-back singles from
Brendan Hendriks and
Zack Turner,
Justin McCullough singled to center to bring home Hendriks to cut the deficit to six. It was followed by another single from
Bob Cruikshank and a double by
Matt Sinatro, driving home two more, to bring it to a 12-8 game.
The Dons had two runners on with no outs and Pacific made a pitching change to John Jaeger. After striking out
Cody Snider, he surrendered a single to
Bradley Zimmer to make it a three-run game.
But then Jaeger got
Nico Giarratano to strike out swinging and
Derek Atkinson to groundout to first to end the contest.
The Dons will play host to Nevada on Tuesday at 2 p.m. before hitting the road for the following eight games. USF will not play at home again until May 2 against Santa Clara.
Already with a 1-0 lead, Pacific put a serious dent on the scoreboard in the third.
With runners at the corners and one out, Taylor Murphy hit a groundball, which scored Jimmy Gosano form third, to Hendriks at first base who threw to second to start the double play but the throw went off the helmet of the runner Tyler Sullivan and rolled into centerfield, advancing the runners.
Brett Sullivan followed it with a bloop double to left to score one and Gio Brusa kept the rally alive with a two-RBI single off the pitcher's mound and gave Pacific a 5-0 lead.
"Had we played better defense in the third and threw the ball to the plate instead of second base, they probably only get one," Giarratano said. "Had we caught the ball at third base off the end of the bat, they probably only get one… We had to defend better."
San Francisco rebounded in the bottom half of the inning.
Giarratano singled to center to bring home Sinatro and advanced to second on a throw home and to third on an errant throw to second. Atkinson singled to drive in Giarratano and two batters later
Zack Turner hit a fly ball off the net in left to drive in Atkinson as the Dons cut the lead to 5-3.
After Pacific scored again in the sixth and took a 7-4 lead, the Dons got the bases loaded with two outs but were unable to score and remained trailing by three. It was the second time USF had gotten the bases loaded but were unable to score.
Pacific put up four more runs in the eighth to put the game out of reach.
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