Box Score STOCKTON, Calif. – The University of the Pacific baseball team evens the series with Saint Mary's College after a 5-1 victory on Saturday night.
The Tigers improve to 15-22 overall and 6-11 in the West Coast Conference, while the Gaels fall to 20-17 on the season and 9-8 in WCC play.
After two scoreless innings, SMC got out to a 1-0 lead with Joey Fiske hitting a single to left center to score Austin Piscotty, who led off with a walk and advanced to second on an error by the Tigers to set up the scoring run.
However, the Orange and Black responded back in the bottom half of the inning with Keaton Glover hitting a leadoff single up the middle and stole second to set up the Tigers scoring run. With one out, Ryan Schalch hit a huge double to left field to score Glover to tie the game, 1-1. With two outs, Lucas Halstead was walked and due to a wild pitch, Schalch advanced to third. Bradley Jekich stepped up and singled to right center to score Schalch to give Pacific the 2-1 lead.
From there, the Tigers kept it going as Kevin Sandri was hit by the pitch to land on base in the bottom of the fourth. Sandri was pushed to second on a sacrifice bunt by Alex LeForestier and Glover singled to second base to advance Sandri to third to set up another run for the Tigers.
Matthew Tarantino stepped up and hit a sacrifice bunt to score Sandri to take the 3-1 lead over the Gaels. Glover stole third and managed to score on a throwing error by SMC to push the Orange and Black lead up to 4-1.
After three more scoreless innings, Pacific grabbed one final run to secure the 5-1 victory in the bottom of the eighth on a bunt by LeForestier to score Carter Hayes.
"I'm really proud of the way our guys bounced back after a couple of tough losses," said head coach Ryan Garko. "Ricky threw great and got better as the game went along, and Lucas showed no fear coming into that game and finishing it."
Pacific tallied 10 hits, four RBI and five runs on the night.
LeForestier, Jekich, Schalch, and Tarantino all tallied an RBI. Keaton Glover tallied two hits in four at-bats with two runs scored while Sandri, Hayes, Jekich all had two hits. Schalch and LeForestier each tallied one hit.
On the mound, Ricky Reynoso had a great outing picking up the win after pitching 7.1 innings with four strikeouts and giving up just one run. Lucas Sweany earned his first save of the season after pitching 1.2 innings with one strikeout and giving up just one hit. Ken Waldichuk was charged with the loss after pitching 5.1 innings and striking out four batters.
The Tigers return to action on Sunday, April 22 to close out the series against Saint Mary's with first pitch set for 1:00 p.m.
