PROVO, Utah — The strong pitching performances that the University of San Francisco baseball team has needed finally came on Saturday, as the Dons got four-plus strong innings from starter Grant Nechak, four clutch relief innings from Eric Reyzelman, and an important one-inning save from Jesse Barron to shut down host BYU and win the series finale – and clinch a West Coast Conference series victory – 3-1 at Miller Park.
 
"It's great for the kids, they've played hard," said University of San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano. "They've been through a lot. It was good to get two out of three."
 
Nechak had one of his best outings of the year, only allowing one run in 4 2/3 innings of work, striking out two while walking three and allowing four hits. He didn't allow a hit until the fourth inning, and even after three straight leadoff hits to start the fifth, the only run he allowed was on a double play with the bases loaded.
 
Eric Reyzelman (1-1) earned the win with his best showing of the season. He threw a season-long four shutout innings, only allowing one hit striking out two. He pitched into the ninth inning before giving way to Jesse Barron, who got a strikeout to end the game and the series for USF (7-15, 3-3 WCC).
 
"Nechak, he threw his fastball for strikes. His slider was working today. He was aggressive," said Giarratano.
 
"Reyzelman was better today. He was around the strikezone, his fastball had some life to it; And what a great weekend for Barron, to come back from where he was a couple weeks ago and get two important close-outs."
 
San Francisco took a 1-0 lead in the first inning and never surrendered it. Two of USF's three runs on the day came with two outs. Jordan Vujovich's sixth RBI of the series put the Dons ahead 1-0 in the first when he stroked a two-out double to score Jack Winkler. Winkler had his third three-hit performance in his last six games, going 3 for 5 with a double and run scored.
 
Jacob Munoz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the top of the fifth to make it 2-0. And Darius Foster helped USF answer BYU's (8-13, 4-2 WCC) only run of the game with a two-out RBI single in the top of the sixth, making it 3-1. Foster had his third multi-hit game in his last four, going 2 for 4 with an RBI, walk, stolen base and run scored.
 
"I think we come back this week, we have a good week of practice, we get to play at home starting on Thursday and we've gotta start rolling on it," said Giarratano. "There's some things to improve on. This is one of those momentum things where we're only one pitch away all the time, and we just need to keep on working on staying consistent."
 
San Francisco next returns home to host Loyola Marymount in a three-game WCC series starting Thursday at Benedetti Diamond. Fans can find all live coverage links at USFDons.com.