SACRAMENTO -- The Sacramento State baseball team closed out the 2023 regular season on a winning note, sending the senior class out with an 11-2 victory and a sweep of visiting Utah Tech on Saturday afternoon at John Smith Field.
The Hornets finished the year with a 30-26 overall record and a 14-16 mark in Western Athletic Conference play, extending its streak of 30-win seasons to 11 consecutive years dating back to 2012 — the only Division I school in the state of California to accomplish that feat. In winning its final five consecutive games, Sacramento State also gave Head Coach Reggie Christiansen his 400th career win at the helm of the Hornets' program.
With the loss, the Trailblazers finished the year 13-39 overall and 8-22 in conference play.
Senior
Martin Vincelli-Simard, who tied the school record with his 35th career home run on Friday night, finished his career in the green and gold with a 3-for-4 day at the plate, scoring twice and driving in three runs while collecting a pair of doubles. Freshman
JP Smith homered twice — his second multi-home run game of the year — and drove in four, while
Jeffery Heard and
Josh Rolling each added a pair of hits.
Gallery: (5-20-2023) 2023 Baseball Senior Day
For the third consecutive game, every Sacramento State starter finished with a hit as the Hornets finished with double-digit hits for the fifth straight contest — a season-long streak — while ending the year with double-digit runs for the fourth consecutive outing, finishing the weekend outscoring Utah Tech by a 36-11 count.
Sophomore right-hander
Tyler Stewart (1-2) was masterful, scattering just two hits and striking out six over five shutout innings, retiring 11 consecutive hitters at one point in the game en route to his first win of the season. Senior
Trey Goodrich, junior
Kevin Haynes, junior
Cooper Rons, and senior
Jack Zalasky then went the rest of the way, pitching an inning apiece while allowing just two runs on four hits and striking out three combined.
A bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the first by
Cesar Valero staked the Hornets to the early lead, but was only a sign of things to come. Sacramento State opened things up with a four-run second as
Jorge Bojorquez (RBI single), Vincelli-Simard (two-run double), and Valero (RBI double) each plated runs, followed by
Griffin Harrison's third-inning RBI double, trading places with
Jeffery Heard thanks back-to-back doubles for a 6-0 lead.
The shutout lasted until the seventh with Utah Tech was able to finally break onto the scoreboard with a two-run home run by Sean Keating, but the Hornets had an answer. Smith sent the third pitch he saw over the wall in center field to lead off the home half of the seventh for his 13th home run of the year then, after an RBI double in the eighth by Vincelli-Simard, slugged his second of the game and 14th of the year to right center field — this time a three-run shot — for the final 11-2 score.
Smith's 14 home runs ties teammate
Wehiwa Aloy for the most home runs by a freshman in the program's Division I era, while also ranking in a tie for 10th alongside five other Hornets. Meanwhile, Aloy's two runs scored on the day gave him 69 for the second, which ranks second on the single-season list and just one off Brandon Marshall's 1998 single-season mark of 70, and his 88 hits ranked him in a tie for sixth alongside Hunter Martinez (2009) and Mikela Olsen (2003) on the single-season chart.
Vincelli-Simard's team-high 60 RBI this year rank in a tie for 10th on the single-season list, while his three RBI on Saturday gave him 150 for his career, matching
Steven Moretto (2018-22) for second on the career chart.
