SAN FRANCISCO—Despite some early miscues, the Dons took a lead into the ninth but saw Sacramento State post four runs in the inning and take the game 7-4 on Tuesday afternoon.
 
The loss snapped USF's short four-game winning streak.
 
"We just didn't make good baseball plays in the ninth inning. That's how you lose," San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano said. "I think a little bit of that was we were looking forward to the weekend. We kind of looked past this today and that's what we got. We got beat."
 
With the Dons (22-20, 14-4 WCC) leading 4-3, Sacramento State had a chance to tie it in the eighth and possibly go ahead when they got a single and a walk to put two on with one out. Logan West was brought it to stop the threat and he struck out the next two hitters to end the inning.
 
Seven Dons pitchers combined to go the first eight innings and allowed no earned runs on eight hits. Mack Meyer went the longest stretch with 2.2 innings and allowed three hits and two unearned runs.
 
In the ninth, the Dons quickly found themselves in trouble. An error, a single off the glove of Zack McCoy at third, and a hit by pitch had loaded the bases with one out and Sacramento State broke through with two straight RBI singles, which brought home four runs and gave the Hornets a 7-4 lead.
 
San Francisco had a chance to answer in the bottom half of the inning when Ryan Matranga led off with his fourth single of the day. It was followed with a single by Michael Eaton to put runners at first and second with no outs.
 
The Dons appeared primed to cut into the Hornet lead but Connor Hofmann's sharp groundball up the middle was snared by the Sacramento State shortstop and he started the 6-4-3 double play.
 
The first place Dons will be back in action on Thursday to begin a three-game West Coast Conference series at BYU. San Francisco has won nine straight WCC games.
 
Brendan Hendriks got the Dons started in the first when he jumped on the first pitch and launched it over the right center wall to give USF a 2-0 lead.
 
After the Hornets scored on a passed ball in the third, the Dons got the run back in the fourth when Aaron Ping had runners at the corners with one out and he hit a fly ball to center that was caught on a dive and allowed Dominic Miroglio to score, moving the Dons up by two.
 
One inning later, Sacramento State's Nathan Lukes reached on an error and eventually scored on a two-out double down the rightfield line from Vinny Esposito. It was followed with an RBI single to tie the game at three.
 
The first three runs scored by Sacramento State were unearned.
 
USF retook the lead in the sixth when Matranga ripped a two-out single to right to bring home Miroglio. The junior catcher went 4-for-4 on the day.