Box Score Follow the Diamond Dons: FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM SAN FRANCISCO—The Dons put together a rally in the ninth but were unable to complete the comeback as they fell to Santa Clara 2-1 on Sunday afternoon.
With the Dons trailing 2-0 and two outs in the bottom of the ninth,
Matt Sinatro singled through the left side to score
Blake Valley and cut the Santa Clara lead to one. But that would be as close as the Dons would get as
Nico Giarratano struck out to end the game.
The Dons had a chance to score in the seventh when they got runners at second and third with one out but were unable to push a run home, keeping it a 2-0 game.
"We had an opportunity to score, second and third one out and we strike out. We get another opportunity to score again, second and third, two outs and we don't get it done," San Francisco head coach
Nino Giarratano said. "It's one of things where when we pitch, we don't score. When we score, we don't pitch… We've got to try to get it fixed."
San Francisco (21-25, 9-15 WCC) wrapped up its home conference slate but still have five home games remaining with the first coming on Tuesday against San Jose State.
Like in the first two games of the series, Santa Clara scored in the first. With two down, Casey Munoz ripped a single to center to bring home Greg Harisis and give Santa Clara a 1-0 lead. The Broncos followed it up with another single but
Sheldon Lee was able to get out of the inning.
Lee settled down and did not yield a hit to nine straight batters from the third to sixth inning. Lee came into the game having not allowed an earned run in 27 innings as a starter and went 5.2 innings while allowing two runs on five hits.
"We always saw great things from Sheldon," Giarratano said. "We're really starting to see it as a starter. He's really come on and given us quality starts. If we could get those kinds of starts on Fridays and Saturdays from him next year, that would be wonderful."
Santa Clara added one more in the sixth on a suicide squeeze bunt from Zach Looney to put the Broncos up 2-0.
Logan West and
Houston Hibberd came in to shut the door on Santa Clara and paired to go the final 3.1 innings with no runs allowed.
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