PROVO, Utah—Senior Christian Cecilio continued to show why he is one of the better pitchers in the West Coast Conference and pitched the Dons into the 10th inning but, for the second straight game, they saw BYU walk-off with a 3-2 win on Saturday.

"He pitched great," San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano said of Cecilio. "Tough to lose a game like that when a guy goes 9.2 innings. A little bad luck there for us."
 
With the game tied at two in the 10th inning, the Dons tried to mount a two-out rally. Already with a runner at first, Kyle Norman beat out a bunt single and give USF two runners on for Cecilio.
 
The Dons starting pitcher, who did not have an at bat in his collegiate career, came up and fought his way to a 3-2 count before he hit a high hopper to short and nearly beat the throw but the grounder ended the inning.
 
BYU put two on with no outs and Cecilio got a groundball to Nico Giarratano at short, who just missed a tag on the runner heading to third, for the first out. Cecilio picked up a strikeout for the second out but he threw a wild pitch to the next batter and it allowed the runner to score from third to give BYU the victory.
 
Cecilio (5-2) went 9.2 innings for his fourth complete game of the season and allowed three runs on seven hits. He threw 114 pitches on Saturday.
 
San Francisco (22-23, 14-7 WCC) has now lost four straight games and will not play again until next Saturday when the Dons host Pepperdine for three at Benedetti Diamond.

"I was proud of them how they competed on the road," Giarratano said. "Everything is still in front of us and we need to keep playing. It is all about the streaks right now, the winning streaks and the losing streaks. Hopefully we can even that out and start winning our games."
 
Cecilio made quick work of BYU through the first four innings as he was aided by his defense and faced the minimum 12 batters.
 
The Dons had been kept off the board through the first four innings as well but finally broke through in the fifth. With runners at second and third and two down, Connor Hofmann singled to right to bring home Ryan Matranga but Michael Eaton was thrown out at the plate to make it a 1-0 game.
 
BYU attempted to rally in the bottom half of the inning when the Cougars put two on with one out and Cecilio got a groundball and a fly out to end the inning.
 
Cecilio had kept BYU off balance much of the afternoon and entered the seventh having only allowed three hits but the Cougars finally got on the board. Two batters after a leadoff single, Cecilio missed with a fastball over the plate and Colton Shaver hit a booming home run to center to give BYU a 2-1 lead.
 
It was only the second home run Cecilio had allowed this season.
 
The Dons were able to get even in the eighth. With runners at second and third and two down, Dominic Miroglio was intentionally walked to load the bases and it brought up pinch hitter Justin McCullough and he drew a 3-2 walk to bring in the tying run.
 
San Francisco looked to have a shot in the ninth when the Dons put two runners on with one out but Giarratano grounded into the 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.
 
The Dons were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position on the day.

"We just couldn't get a big hit to get ahead," Giarratano said. "Nothing went our way for the weekend. We couldn't get to that ball to drop in when we needed it."