SAN DIEGO, Calif.—The Dons were faced with another opportunity on Saturday with sole possession of first place on the line and the team responded as they got a big blast from Derek Atkinson and another stellar performance from Christian Cecilio to beat San Diego 6-2 on Saturday night.
 
The win moved the Dons (21-19, 13-4 WCC) into sole possession of first place and are guaranteed to leave the weekend with at least a share of the top spot in the West Coast Conference. The Dons go for the series sweep in the finale against San Diego at 1 p.m. on Sunday with redshirt freshman Sam Granoff (3-2, 1.44 ERA) on the mound.
 
"It's about how we pitch," San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano said. "We felt all year if we could get going offensively that we could get going as a team. We're playing our best baseball of the season right now with 15 games to go in the season.
 
"We've got to keep playing. Our goal is to keep ourselves in position to win the West Coast Conference… Tomorrow is the biggest game of the year and that's how we have to look at it."
 
San Diego seemed to continue its hot hitting from the ninth inning on Friday when it got a leadoff double in the first inning and moved the runner to third on a groundout. With one out, Jesse Jenner flew out to right to bring home the run and put USD up 1-0.
 
Cecilio settled down and retired nine of the next 10 batters and gave the Dons a chance to answer back.
 
USF did so in the third and put together a two-out rally. After Nico Giarratano earned a walk and Brendan Hendriks singled to put two runners on, Atkinson turned on a 1-1 pitch and launched it over the rightfield wall for a three-run home run to give USF a 3-1 lead.
 
San Diego chipped away at the lead with a run in the fourth to make it 3-2 but the Dons added on in the middle innings.
 
Atkinson led off the sixth with a triple and was brought home one batter later on a single up the middle from Dominic Miroglio to pad the Dons lead, making it 4-2. One inning later, San Francisco strung four straight hits together and had two score on RBI hits from Giarratano and Hendriks to five USF a four-run lead.
 
Atkinson went 2-for-5 with three RBI on the night and the top five hitters in the order combined to go 11-for-23.
 
The hits chased San Diego starter PJ Conlon from the game as he allowed six earned runs in 6.1 innings. He entered the game with a 1.63 ERA.
 
"The offense was sharp again today," Giarratano said of his offense, which punched out 12 hits on Saturday. "I was very pleased with how we swung the bats against Conlon. We had a good approach, we saw it well."
 
San Francisco had a chance to add on as Mirolgio walked and loaded the bases with one out but were unable to capitalize in the inning.
 
His counterpart, Cecilio, cruised through the middle innings but ran into trouble in the eighth after the first two hitters in the inning singled to put two on with no outs. After a swinging strikeout, Cecilio walked the next batter to load the bases and the senior left hander showed why he has been one of the better pitchers in the nation by getting out of the inning with a strikeout and a fly out.
 
"Christian pitched great," said Giarratano. "He just battled and every time he got in trouble, he was able to get out of it."
 
He went eight innings and allowed two runs on seven hits with eight strikeouts.
 
It is the first time San Francisco has won a series in San Diego since 2009.