BELLEVUE, Wash. — Senior Gunner Gouldsmith tied the game with a home run to lead-off the eighth inning and freshman Cameron Sewell un-tied it with his first collegiate grand slam on an 0-2 pitch six batters later, breaking a four-all tie and helping lift Sacramento State to an 8-5 victory and a sweep of its three-game Western Athletic Conference series with Seattle U on Sunday.
The Hornets won for the fifth time in their last six games, improving to 18-20 overall and evening their record in conference play at 9-9. The Redhawks fell to 8-27 overall and 3-12 in league play with the loss.
Trailing 4-1 after Seattle U put up a four-spot in the second inning, Sacramento State muscled its way back thanks to seven unanswered runs — four of those leaving the yard for home runs. A solo shot by Jorge Bojorquez in the fourth (his second of the weekend) got the Hornets one run closer and sophomore JP Smith made it a one-run game in the sixth with a solo shot — his 15th of the year and the 29th of his career — to make it 4-3.
Smith moved into a tie for seventh on the school's all-time list with the blast, moving to within one more home run of teammate Cesar Valero and a three others for a tie for third.
That set the stage for a massive rally in the eighth as Sacramento State completed the comeback. Gouldsmith wasted little time in tying things up, launching his second home run of the season on only the second pitch he saw in the inning over the wall in left.
Things then got a little messy for the Seattle bullpen as a walk was quickly followed by a pair of strikeouts that threatened to shut down the rally. However, Cesar Valero kept the inning alive with a walk and he and pinch-runner Brett Ott moved up 90 more feet when Bojorquez was hit by a pitch to load the bases after a pitching change.
That brought Sewell to plate, who quickly fell behind 0-2 in the count before crushing the next pitch he saw over the wall in right, clearing the bases and giving the Hornets an 8-4 lead.
The Redhawks tried to answer with a rally of their own in the eighth, getting a one-out double and a walk before a double play shut down the opportunity. Seattle was then able to plate a run in the ninth on a two-out single, before a fly ball to right ended the game.
Freshman right-hander Kade Brown (2-2) earned the win in relief, allowing a run on three hits and striking out a pair over the final 2.1 innings. That followed a pair of shutout performances by Cooper Rons and Xavier Richards — the former allowing two hits over 2.1 innings and striking out four after entering the game in the second, and the latter scattering two hits over 2.2 shutout innings while striking out a pair.
Five different Hornets accounted for hits on the day, led by a 2-for-3 day from Bojorquez, who added a pair of runs scored to his growing school-record total.
Sacramento State breaks from WAC play in the coming week with four non-conference contests on the road. The Hornets head to Bay Area rival Stanford on Tuesday (April 16) for a 6 p.m. first pitch at Sunken Diamond before traveling to Southern California to take on USC for two games (April 19 and 21) sandwiched around a single-game against Santa Clara (April 20) over the weekend.
