The road-weary Dons had one last battle to fight before they could head home and it came in the form of the number 18 team in the country, Coastal Carolina. USF nearly knocked them off on Friday, but today would be a different story as Coastal took a 6-1 win.  

The Dons (8-5, 0-0 WCC) would strike first taking a 1-0 lead when Manny Ramirez Jr. would double home Dominic Miroglio, who also doubled. 

Coastal would come back in the bottom of the third and score three runs. Walks were a big part of starter Sam Granoff's struggles after a strong first two innings. A single and a couple of walks would begin the trouble and Wood Myer would capitalize with a two run single. Then Kevin Woodall Jr would single home another.

Granoff finished the day with a line of 5.1 innings pitched, four earned runs, five walks and two strikeouts. Joey Steele (2 ER), Scott Parker and Riley Ornido would finish the game out.

After the second inning the Dons would only record one more hit and it would come from Nico Giarratano in the ninth inning. Ross Puskarich failed to record a hit for the first time in 29 games.

"We got beat today," head coach Nino Giarratano said. "We got beat in every facet of the game, they out pitched us, out hit us, better defense. That was the first time all year we have been beat like that."

The Dons split four games on the weekend, beating Winthrop and Albany while dropping two to Coastal Carolina. Even though it came in two losses, there was experience to gain for USF.

"It's the experience," Giarratano said. "We obviously felt like we should have beat (Coastal Carolina) both times but we didn't do it. We gave the first game away and that lead to the momentum today." 

This game signaled the closing of the Dons second four-game road weekend in a row and third straight weekend of four-game series'. All the travel and games has allowed the Dons to get a lot of work in early this season. "We're getting to put a lot of guys in a lot of tough situations and we're learning a lot," Giarratano said. 

Now, the Dons return home for a full week, with no mid-week game and a chance to get ready for a three-game series against Grand Canyon in Arizona next weekend. 

"It will be nice to get a full week of practice," Giarratano said. "We can get them rest, get them to class, do some normal things and get on west coast time again."

After the Dons take on Grand Canyon, they will return home on March 15th to take on Fresno St. at 3 p.m. and you can buy tickets by clicking here. Then, that weekend, WCC play begins as USF will host LMU. You can buy tickets to the WCC opener by clicking here.