University of San Francisco Athletics

Box Score

RIVERSIDE, Calif.—The Dons fell behind early and were unable to recover as they dropped their season opener at UC Riverside 10-2 on Friday night.
 
San Francisco (0-1) has lost six of its last seven season openers and returns to action on Saturday against UC Riverside in the second of a three-game set.
 
"Give up 16 hits in the first game, make three errors, make two base running mistakes and not hit with runners in scoring position. It's a rough night," USF head coach Nino Giarratano said. "There wasn't one component I was happy with on day one. We didn't do anything that we were capable of doing in the first game."
 
"We're going to be better than that as the season rolls on. We just weren't very good tonight."
 
After a strong finish to the 2013 season, it looked like the Dons were going to pick up right where they left off in the top of the first.
 
Matt Sinatro led off the game and hit a chopper to third and a throwing error by Alex Rubanowitz moved the freshman to second. A walk to Nico Giarratano gave the Dons runners at first and second with no outs.
 
But UC Riverside was able to dance out of danger as Jacob Smigelski struck out Bradley Zimmer and Zach Turner and got Derek Atkinson to fly out to end the threat.
 
UC Riverside rebounded and got on the board quickly. After a Joe Chavez single to lead off the inning, Francisco Tellez hit a fly ball that tailed away from leftfielder Brendan Hendriks for a double and brought in Chavez to give Riverside a 1-0 lead.
 
Riverside continued to find success against Abe Bobb in the first and with the bases loaded and no outs, Cody Hough hit a two-hopper by a diving Michael Eaton for a two-run single to put the Highlanders up 3-0.
 
Bobb settled down after the first and found a rhythm. He got through the second and third innings unscathed while striking out three. It also allowed the Dons to climb back into the contest and the bats came alive in the fourth.
 
Zimmer was walked to lead off the inning and he promptly stole second, his first steal of the season. Turner grounded out to short, advancing Zimmer to third and Atkinson took care of the rest.
 
He punched a low liner just passed a diving Nick Vilter for an RBI single to cut the deficit to 3-1.
 
USF was not able to do much else against Smigelski. The hard-throwing right hander went six innings, allowing two runs on three hits.
 
"It had a chance to be close," Giarratano said. "We give up three in the first, we didn't pitch well early in the game. When we scored to make it 3-1, we gave it back. We scored again to make it 4-2, we gave it back to make it 5-2."
 
"We just didn't put a good swing on it to close the gap."
 
Bobb found himself in trouble again in the bottom of the inning and it started with Chavez. The Highlander second baseman singled and was brought home on a Tellez double to right to give them the 4-1 lead.
 
The top five hitters in the Riverside lineup combined to hit 13-for-22 with eight RBI.
 
USF used five pitchers Friday, including Andy Frakes and Mack Meyer.
 
The Dons are 3-7 in their last 10 meetings with UC Riverside with the last coming in the 2010 season.
 
FRESHMEN MAKING DEBUTS
Matt Sinatro, Nico Giarratano, Mack Meyer, Andy Frakes, Cody Snider and Dylan Parks made their first collegiate appearances on Friday and for Sinatro and Giarratano, it was their first career starts… Sinatro went 1-for-3 on the night… Giarratano reached base twice, scored a run but did not have a hit… Frakes pitched two-thirds of an inning, facing three hitters.