SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento State baseball team won its fourth Western Athletic Conference series in five tries this season, scoring runs in each of the first five innings to back a strong start by junior Ethan Lay to help lift the Hornets to a 6-2 victory over California Baptist on Saturday afternoon at John Smith Field.
The victory improved Sacramento State to 23-16 overall and 10-5 in conference play, winning their third consecutive league weekend after taking 2-of-3 from the Lancers. CBU fell to 22-18 overall and 5-7 in the WAC with the defeat.
Lay (3-2) picked up his third win of the season, allowing just one earned run on six hits while pitching into the seventh, walking two and striking out five. Andrew Monson struck out a pair in his lone inning of work before giving way to closer Kade Brown, who notched his 11th save of the year with a pair of strikeouts over two innings of work.
California Baptist was the first one the board with a run in the first but, what could have been a big inning was snuffed out on a fly out to right with the bases loaded and two outs.
The Hornets answered quickly in the home half as Tyler White led-off with a single and scored two batters later when JP Smith unloaded for his seventh home run of the season off starter Jacob Wilson to give the home team the lead for good.
Sacramento State then put up single runs in each of the next four innings as White had a sacrifice fly in the second, followed by a Luis Pimentel-Guerrero RBI double in the third, and an RBI base hit from Nikhil Beasley in the fourth. Pimentel-Guerrero, who finished 3-for-3 on the day, capped the scoring for the Hornets with an RBI single through the left side for a 6-1 advantage.
Meanwhile, Lay settled in, retiring seven straight hitters at one point, including retiring the side in order in the third, fifth, and sixth innings.
The Lancers added a run in the seventh with one out, but that would be it for the offense as Brown came on in the eighth with two on and struck out the first two hitters he faced before getting a fly ball to end the frame. He then induced CBU into a pair of ground balls and a pop-up to end the game.
Brown's 11 saves are now tied for second on the school's single-season list, sitting just six saves shy of the record set by Sutter McLoughlin in 2013. Brown's total matches Mike Frame (1998), Tyler Beardsley (2016), and Jack Zalasky (who did it twice in 2022 and 2023), for that No. 2 spot.
Meanwhile, Brown's 19 career saves are seven shy of both Frame (1987-89) and Zalasky (2019-23) for the No. 2 spot on the all-time list. McLoughlin holds the career record with 33 saves from 2013-15.
Aside from Pimentel-Guerrero's three-hit day, Smith and sophomore Myles Walton each finished 2-for-4 to join the multi-hit club. With his first-inning single, White now has reached base safely in each of the last 16 games — the longest active streak among Hornet hitters after Matt Masciangelo had his streak of 23 such games ended on Saturday.
Sacramento State heads to Nevada on Tuesday (April 22) for a midweek contest at 6 p.m. in Reno before coming back home to host a non-conference series with UC Riverside on April 25-27 at John Smith Field.
