STANFORD, Calif.—The Dons had multiple chances to break the game open and were able to jump ahead in the seventh inning but could not hang onto that lead and dropped the Tuesday night contest to Stanford 5-3.
 
"We didn't do anything right fundamentally," San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano said. "We were awful the whole game... To score three today is disappointing because we should have scored six, seven runs."
 
After a leadoff walk and wild pitch in the seventh inning put Ross Puskarich at second, Aaron Ping came to the plate and crushed a double that one-hopped the left center field wall to bring home the run and give USF a 2-1 lead.
 
It was Ping's first career hit and first career start.
 
Ryan Matranga came up and dropped down a sacrifice bunt and the Stanford pitcher tried to get Ping at third but the freshman slid around the tag and gave the Dons runners at the corners with no outs. Michael Eaton was next and he dropped down a suicide squeeze bunt to score Ping to make it a two-run lead.
 
Connor Hofmann laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the runners to second and third with one down but two straight strikeouts ended the inning.
 
In the bottom half of the inning, Stanford got two on via walk and advanced the runners to second and third on a sacrifice bunt with one out. The Cardinal then scored four runs on a single, error, a wild pitch, and a sacrifice fly to take a 5-3 lead.
 
San Francisco had base runners in each of the final two innings but was unable to advance them past first base.
 
The Dons will take a day off before taking on Santa Clara in West Coast Conference for a three-game set, beginning on Thursday at 6 p.m.
 
"We've got to bounce back. It's going to be tough," Giarratano said. "We haven't done what we've needed to do most of the year. We're going to have to play better. We're going to have to find some sort of offense from somebody. We just need guys to chip in and do their job."
 
Dominic Miroglio led off the second with a single to left and it was followed by a walk to Ross Puskarich to give the Dons runners at first and second with no outs but a strikeout and a double play ended the inning.
 
The Dons got another chance one inning later when Hofmann came up with a runner at first and he sliced it into the leftfield corner for an RBI double to give USF a 1-0 lead.
 
The Dons were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and 0-for-8 with two outs against Stanford.
 
Stanford looked to strike back in the fourth. The Cardinal got the leadoff man on and he advanced on a steal with no outs but the combination of Anthony Buonopane and Frank Waliczek were able to get out of the jam and hold onto the one-run lead.
 
The Cardinal broke through in the fifth when they put runners at the corners with no outs and got a single through the right side to bring home the runner from third and tie the game at one. The three straight hits chased Waliczek from the game and the Dons went to Logan West.
 
After a sacrifice bunt to move the runners to second and third with one down, West got a strike out and then a fly out to right to end the inning and keep it a 1-1 tie.
 
West went two innings and allowed no runs on no hits.
 
"He was the one guy who came out of the bullpen, other than Buonopane, that came out and threw strikes right away," Giarratano said. "Good for Logan."
 
Dons starting pitcher Sam Granoff made his fourth start of the year and went two shutout innings with two hits.