SAN FRANCISCO — It may have taken a little longer than the University of San Francisco baseball team might have preferred, but 13 games into the season, things look to finally be falling into the places they were always supposed to be.
 
USF posted its fourth-consecutive double-digit hits performance on Wednesday and threw its second shutout in two weeks, completing a two-game non-conference sweep of Mount St. Mary's with a 6-0 victory at Benedetti Diamond.
 
An opening-weekend sweep at the hands of CSUN – a team the Dons manhandled in three games to end 2019 – was a bit of an eye-opener for a squad that is returning 20 letterwinners and 22 players overall from a 30-win campaign last year. San Francisco only scored six runs in that series, hit .196 as a team and had a 6.00 staff ERA while starting the year 0-3.
 
Since then, the Dons have gone 6-4, batting .306 and carrying an ERA nearly two runs lower than that opening series in Northridge. They've won three in a row and four of their last five, charging full speed into an important non-conference weekend series against Pac-12 Conference neighbor California. It will be the last weekend series of USF's non-conference schedule before starting WCC play on the road at regular contender Pepperdine, which is off to its own 10-2 start.
 
Wednesday carried a familiar pattern to it, as has gone the last two weeks. Nick Yovetich hit his second home run of the year, a solo shot in the bottom of the second, to get USF on the board. It would stay 1-0 for 5 1/2 innings thanks to Nick Roth turning in four shutout frames with four strikeouts, and Riley Ornido (1-2) posting a perfect fifth to earn the victory in relief.
 
The San Francisco bullpen threw five more shutout innings on Wednesday, stretching its scoreless streak to 11 1/3 frames since Sunday. Matthew McConnell made his collegiate debut, throwing a perfect top of the ninth and notching his first career strikeout. He and Grant Young combined to throw 3 1/3 no-hit innings to close the game out.
 
Robert Emery extended his hitting streak to nine games with an insurance RBI single in the sixth. He reached base three times Wednesday and scored a run during the Dons' four-run eighth.
 
Yovetich tripled, Emery walked and Kyle Knell doubled both of them home to make it 4-0 before the first out was recorded in the bottom of the eighth. Harris Williams got his 10th hit of the season and three batters later, Tyler Villaroman tripled them both home to put USF up 6-0.
 
San Francisco's three-game non-conference series with Cal starts at 6 p.m. Friday in Berkeley. The series shifts back across the Bay for game two at 2 p.m. Saturday at Benedetti Diamond. The series finale will be played back in Berkeley at 1 p.m. Sunday. Fans can find all live coverage links on USFDons.com.