Box Score Follow the Diamond Dons: FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM RENO, Nev.—The Dons continued a stellar stretch of pitching and started the game with 6.1 hitless innings as they took the late night Tuesday matchup with Nevada 4-1.
"It's not an easy place to play with the weather like it is tonight, not an easy place to do what we did," San Francisco head coach
Nino Giarratano said. "I'm glad we did and hopefully it leads to a good weekend for us in Portland."
Sheldon Lee started the game for the Dons and was lights out against Nevada. After throwing seven shutout innings against the Wolfpack last week, he went two scoreless and retired all six batters he faced.
The Dons continued to get outstanding pitching when
Grant Goodman entered the game. After walking the leadoff batter of the third inning, he got a double play and a fly out to end the inning.
San Francisco entered the seventh inning with a no-hitter intact but that is when Nevada finally broke through in a big way. After a sharp lineout by Kewby Meyer, Brad Gerig broke up the no-hitter and tied the game with a home run.
Goodman went 4.2 innings and allowed one run on two hits, both hits coming in the seventh inning.
But in the ninth, the Dons loaded the bases for
Derek Atkinson and he hit a towering fly ball down the leftfield line, which hit off the top of the wall to clear the bases and give San Francisco a 4-1 lead.
Since last Tuesday, the Dons (19-20, 7-11 WCC) have gotten a much needed boost from the pitching staff. Lee went seven scoreless against Nevada last week.
Abe Bobb and
Christian Cecilio threw back-to-back complete games against No. 19 Pepperdine. Tonight, it was a group effort to hold Nevada to one run on three hits.
"We're starting to execute pitches, we're starting to get guys out, we're starting to hold people down. That's how we wanted to design it," Giarratano said. "They're gaining some momentum and hopefully these last 14-15 games, they can carry us and who knows. We could get on fire, someone else could give us some help."
The Dons have nine remaining West Coast Conference games and are four games back of the fourth seed, the final spot for the WCC Championship tournament. They begin that stretch at Portland on Friday.
"We've got to take it one game at a time right now and if we pitch like that every single time out right now, we're going to do it."
The Dons took advantage of some early walks by Nevada.
Bradley Zimmer led off the game by walking, moved to second on a ground ball out by
Nico Giarratano and stole third on ball four to
Derek Atkinson, giving the Dons runners at the corners with one out.
Atkinson bluffed a steal of second and intentionally tried to get into a rundown but the throw from Nevada's catcher Jordan Devencenzi bounced off second base and into centerfield, which allowed Zimmer to score and give the Dons a 1-0 lead.
San Francisco had a chance to add more when Nevada starter Trevor Brooks walked the bases loaded and forced the Wolfpack to go to the bullpen. Mark Nowaczewski came in and settled his team down when he got
Justin McCullough to strike out and
Bob Cruikshank to ground out to end the inning.
"Offensively, I was frustrated early in the game," Giarratano said. "We had bases loaded, one out, we had their guy on the ropes. We took a breaking ball in the middle of the plate. We just need to put the ball in play in those situations."
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