Baseball Opens Home Stand With 9-1 Victory Over Sacramento State

Friday, March 7

Riverside, CA

6:00 pm

UC Riverside

7-6

Sacramento State

7-7

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Runs R	Hits H	Errors E
Sacramento State	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	7	2
UC Riverside	0	2	0	1	1	3	1	1	X	9	11	4

Photo by: Gabriel L. Acosta

Baseball Opens Home Stand With 9-1 Victory Over Sacramento State

3/7/2014 9:37:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Riverside—The UC Riverside Baseball Team opened a nine-game home stand Friday evening with a 9-1 victory over Sacramento State (box score).

Jake Smigelski (3-1) scattered five hits and struck out six during seven innings of work and has now gone 17.2 innings without allowing an earned run lowering his ERA on the season to 1.01.

The Highlanders got all of the offense they would need in the bottom of the second as last year's CollegeSportsMadness.com National Player of the Week, Nick Vilter, drew a one-out walk and moved to third on a Drake Zarate single down the right field line. Matt Ellis singled to score Vilter, but Zarate was thrown out at third on the play. Cody Hough then reached on an error by the Hornets' second baseman, plating Ellis and giving UC Riverside a 2-0 lead.

Sacramento State took advantage of a pair of Highlanders miscues in the top of the third to cut the lead in half. Chris Lewis got credit for the RBI with a sacrifice fly that scored Nathan Lukes.

UC Riverside scored at least one run in each of the next five innings chasing Hornets' starter Ty Nichols (2-2) after five innings of work. Ellis picked up his second RBI of the night with a sac fly in the fourth, while a Devyn Bolasky sac fly in the fifth made it 4-1 Highlanders.

UCR hung a three spot on relief pitcher Austin Ragsdale in the sixth thanks to yet another sac fly, this one ff the bat of Joe Chavez. Francisco Tellez then drove in a pair of runs, his team-leading 16th and 17th of the season, with a double down the right field line to put the Highlanders up by six.

UC Riverside loaded the bases in the seventh off of the next Hornets' relief pitcher, WHOM Baron, and Cody Hough drew a walk for the Highlanders' eighth run of the evening. In the eighth, Vilter drove in his 16th run of the season in the eighth with the team's fourth sacrfice fly of the game.

Joie Dunyon and Cody Rogina each pitched a scoreless inning of relief for UC Riverside.

Sacramento State and West Virginia play a neutral site game at The Plex Saturday at 1 pm PT. The Highlanders and Mountaineers then square off against one another at 5 pm.