SAN FRANCISCO — It was a day of firsts Tuesday for the University of San Francisco baseball team. In its first home game of 2020, freshman righty Eric Reyzelman took the mound for his first collegiate start, and in the process, earned his first career victory, as the Dons earned their first win of the season with a 6-0 blanking of UC Davis at Benedetti Diamond.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• Reyzelman (1-0) was sharp from the start on Tuesday, and got better as he got deeper into the game. He picked up two strikeouts in the first two innings after he had allowed walks in both innings. The first two batters of the second reached, but he got out of the jam with a pop up, a strikeout and a groundout to preserve the Dons' 3-0 lead at the time.
   
• Reyzelman ended his outing with back-to-back strikeouts in the fifth with a runner in scoring position and the tying run on deck. He would go five shutout innings with three hits allowed, two walks and a season-high six strikeouts. Double plays helped the Dons on Tuesday, with a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play ending the fourth and a 6-4-3 twin killing ended the sixth for USF relief pitcher Michael Benz.
   
• Benz, Alex Pham and Jesse Barron each pitched at least an inning of relief following Reyzelman, none of them allowing a run and the trio combining for five strikeouts against only one walk. Grabbing an early lead helped the Dons keep their pitching plan in order. Tyler Villaroman, Darius Foster and Jack Winkler went single, double, two-run single in the bottom of the first to put USF ahead 2-0 early. Foster brought in another run in the second with a bases-loaded walk.
   
• But San Francisco left the bases loaded in the second and the third innings. It went 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position following Foster's bases-loaded walk in the second and stranded nine runners from the second through seventh innings. Jacob Westerman fixed that in the eighth, giving the Dons insurance runs with a two-run double off the right-center field fence. Kyle Knell's sacrifice fly padded the lead more, scoring Villaroman and making it 6-0.

NUMBERS TO KNOW

• .471: Villaroman is batting a team-best .471 (8 for 17) through four games with an active hitting streak of six games dating to last season. He's scored a team-best five runs and stolen a team-high four bases.
• 10: The Dons drew 10 free passes Tuesday (seven walks, three hit-by-pitches). Only one of them would score, though, in the eighth inning. The other nine were stranded.
• 11: San Francisco left a season-high 11 runnners on base and still scored a season-high six runs. It was the second consecutive game it stranded at least 10 runners (Sunday at CSUN).

COACH GIARRATANO QUOTES

• "We had watched Reyz pitch like that most of the fall and into the winter and we really thought he could be special for us. I'm excited to see what he did for us today. I think he's going to be a really good starter for us. I thought the fastball was plenty good today, the command of it, the breaking ball was good enough, he mixed some changeups in there, he's got a chance to really help us. We've got to use him in the right way, but that's a good Tuesday starter for us."
   
• "This weekend, we got behind in every single game, so it was good to be at home and get some outs and then score some runs like we did. I thought we could've executed a little bit better in the middle part of the game and maybe opened it up, but we didn't. Today, to see (Reyzelman) get into the fifth and set up the bullpen the way we needed it to be was fabulous. If we could do that more often, I think we would be successful."
   
• "I really thought that Harris Williams did a wonderful job, Darius Foster, early in the game with gthe two walks, I thought those two guys added in the lineup today were special. I thought Westerman came up and gave us a big at-bat there off the bench. We had some good at-bats from the middle of the order; We've been playing with two or three offensive guys and today we had five or six, and that'll allow you to score some runs."

COMING UP

• San Francisco travels to CSU Bakersfield for a three-game non-conference series starting Friday. Fans can find all live coverage links on USFDons.com.