SAN FRANCISCO—Having already claimed the series against Saint Mary's, the Dons got behind early and were unable to recover as the Gaels scored in three of the first four innings for the 9-5 West Coast Conference loss on Sunday afternoon.  
 
"The six walks, the two hit by pitch, the three errors in the outfield just didn't help us be successful," San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano said. "We didn't do a very good job of scoring runners from third base with less than two outs. We had plenty of opportunities. We just fumbled around again."
 
Despite the loss, the Dons (11-17, 5-4 WCC) were able to take two out of three from Saint Mary's for the series win. It is the second conference series win for the Dons this season and is the fourth straight year in which San Francisco has taken a series from the Gaels.
 
"Winning two out of three every weekend will help us do what we want to do," Giarratano said. "Any time you win the first two and you don't play well on the third day, it's not a good feeling but we're right in the thick of things in the conference."
 
USF's next conference series will begin on Thursday when they will play at Santa Clara.
 
Saint Mary's got on the board in the second when the Gaels got a bases loaded single to center that brought home two to take a 2-0 lead.
 
The Dons had a chance to answer in the second and got two singles and a hit by pitch to load the bases with one out  but were unable to capitalize Michael Eaton popped out and Zack McCoy struck out to end the frame.
 
The Gaels added on in the third on a triple and single to lead off the inning to take a 3-0 lead, which ended the day for Rincon. The freshman left hander struggled through 2+ innings and allowed three runs on four hits and four walks.
 
In the bottom of the third, Nico Giarratano ripped a one-out double into the leftfield corner and was able to advance to third on a groundout. That brought up Derek Atkinson but his low liner to center was caught and ended the inning.
 
Giarratano went 2-for-5 on the day.
 
With Saint Mary's holding a 7-0 lead in the sixth, San Francisco had an opportunity to cut into the deficit. After two hits and a walk loaded the bases, Justin McCullough came up and hit a fly ball into deep right center for the sacrifice fly.
 
Following back-to-back hits from Connor Hofmann and Giarratano, the Dons added another in the seventh on a sacrifice fly from Brendan Hendriks to make it an 8-2 game. They tacked on another in the eighth on a bloop double in shallow right by Blake Valley to plate Dominic Miroglio.
 
Miroglio scored twice on Sunday and went 3-for-5.
 
The Dons put together a late rally in the ninth and got four consecutive singles to score two more. USF pounded out 15 hits on the day, the most since the team recorded 16 at No. 5 Texas Tech on Feb. 15.
 
"It was nice to see us put it together in the ninth and put some hits back-to-back-to-back," Giarratano said. "Fifteen hits. We have been waiting for the guys to break out of it and maybe this is a start for us."
 
The Dons will be back in action on Tuesday when they travel to the South Bay to take on Stanford at 5:30 p.m.