SAN DIEGO — This season, the University of San Francisco baseball team may go down in a game, but it's never out.
 
San Diego held big, early leads of 4-0 and 6-2 Saturday, but San Francisco made it a one-run game late and had the tying runs on in both the eighth and ninth innings before finally falling 7-5 at Fowler Park in game two of the teams' West Coast Conference series.
 
The Toreros (21-8, 7-4 WCC) scored four runs in the first – all with two outs – to take a 4-0 lead. The Dons (14-17, 9-5 WCC) got solo home runs from Thomas McCarthy and Luke Keaschall in the top of the third to cut the deficit in half, but USD responded with two more two-out runs in the bottom half to make it 6-2.
 
San Francisco wasn't done, though. The Dons scored two runs in the fifth on a San Diego error and got another run in the sixth with a sacrifice fly from Nick Yovetich, pulling to within one at 6-5.
 
USF put its first two runners on to start the eighth and moved them into scoring position with one out, looking to tie or even take the lead, but three consecutive strikeouts ended the threat. Darius Foster led off the ninth with a single to put the tying run on base again, but a double play and a groundout ended the game and preserved the Toreros' win.
 
"They're tough man, they're resilient," said San Francisco head coach Nino Giarratano. "Down 4-0 and battle back to 4-2. We don't execute, we don't make good enough pitches. These guys are always there battling. We tried a little too hard in the ninth. We give too much stuff away, the errors in the first inning, the errors in the ninth. Just the mistakes, the pitching mistakes, giving up runs we shouldn't give up."
 
San Francisco used five pitchers Saturday, getting scoreless outings from Bo Jelinek, who induced two double plays in 1 2/3 innings of work, and Jesse Barron. Max Jones surrendered only an unearned run in 1 1/3 innings pitched.
 
"We had a really nice pitching performance from Jelinek today, pretty good job from Jones in there. Reyzelman is starting to show some signs of making some better pitches," said Giarratano. "We had a lot of good things happen today, McCarthy's home run, the two-out home run by Keaschall. We just couldn't get it done giving so much away early."
 
The Dons will go for the series victory in Sunday's rubber match, scheduled for a 1 p.m. first pitch. Right-hander Grant Nechak is scheduled to throw for USF. Fans can find live covearage links on USFDons.com.
 
"The heart of the club is phenomenal," said Giarratano. "They'll be back tomorrow and play like champions."