University of San Francisco Athletics

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SAN FRANCISCO—The Dons lead early but the pitching staff struggled as San Diego had innings of eight and seven runs en route to the 15-9 West Coast Conference loss on Friday afternoon.
 
"We're having a hard time getting outs with our pitching, not going a real good job of managing the staff as a coach," San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano said. "I've got to do a better job of managing that. We got to do a better job playing defense. This is a good team. If you give them extra opportunities, they're going to score like they did today."
 
San Francisco (12-12, 2-5 WCC) will be back in action on Saturday for the second game of its series against San Diego with Christian Cecilio on the mound.
 
San Diego (17-8, 5-2) looked primed to get on the board in the fifth. With one out, San Diego got a hit from Jesse Jenner followed by a hit by pitch to Kyle Holder. Abe Bobb buckled down and struck out the pinch hitter Hunter Mercado-Hood and got Joe to ground out to second to end the inning.
 
The Dons gave Bobb some insurance in the bottom half of the inning.
 
With two outs and a runner at first, the Toreros intentionally walked Turner to set up a left-on-left matchup between PJ Conlon and Brendan Hendriks. On the third pitch, Hendriks ripped it into rightfield to score the run and put USF up 3-0. Bob Cruikshank kept the rally going with a double off the netting in left, which scored two and gave the Dons a five-run lead.
 
Hendriks went 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBI.
 
The following inning, San Diego loaded the bases with one out and this time the Toreros made USF pay.
 
With one run already in and runners and second and third, Jenner singled to score both runners and make it a 6-3 game. It began a stretch of five straight hits for San Diego, capped off by a three-run home run by Louie Lechich as it took a 8-6 lead.
 
"Bad coaching by me. I should have gotten him out of the inning when it was three runs," Giarratano said. "I left him in one pitch too long."
 
Bobb went 5.2 innings allowing eight runs on 10 hits and is 0-2 in three conference starts.
 
Ben Graff kept the game close going into the ninth at 8-7 but then the Toreros blew the game open. San Diego batted around in the inning and scored seven times on six hits with the key hit coming on a two-RBI double by Kyle Holder.
 
"It was a pretty good game until the ninth," Giarratano said. "We just couldn't pitch again in the ninth. We walked a guy and couldn't catch a fly ball and we threw a guy out at the plate and we dropped the ball. We had some bad luck. Three plays we didn't make in the ninth, we give up seven."