MESA, Ariz. — Jakob Poturnak finished 2-for-4 with four RBI to lead a group of five Hornets with two hits on the day as the top-seeded regular season champion Sacramento State baseball team won its opener over fourth-seeded Grand Canyon, 7-5, on Thursday afternoon at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Ariz., to open the Western Athletic Conference Tournament.
With the victory, the Hornets improved to 32-24 and advanced to face No. 3-seeded Utah Valley in the semifinals on Friday (May 23) at 11 a.m. PT. The Lopes fell to 31-26 overall and faces UT Arlington in an elimination game later Thursday night.
Senior right-hander Evan Gibbons (10-2) picked up the win, throwing five innings and allowing one run on five hits and striking out two before leaving the game with an injury. Noah Lucchesi pitched the next three before giving way to Kade Brown in the ninth, who picked up his 14th save of the year.
After spotting GCU a run in the first, Sacramento State scored five unanswered to give it a lead it would not relinquish. Back-to-back line-drive singles in the third by Luis Pimentel Guerrero and Poturnak staked the Hornets to a 2-1 lead before Pimentel-Guerrero struck again, driving home Tyler White for the 3-1 advantage.
That sparked a three-run fifth that extended the Hornets' advantage as
JP Smith, who finished 2-for-3 with a walk, looped a single just over the outstretched glove of the Lopes' shortstop to score Matt Masicangelo, and Poturnak added his second RBI by beating out a potential double play ball with runners at the corners to make it 5-1.
A run on a double play in the sixth brought GCU a run closer, but Poturnak stayed hot with the bases loaded, dropping a two-run single into right centerfield scoring
Myles Walton and Masciangelo for a 7-2 lead.
Grand Canyon did not go quietly in the eighth, making it a two-run game in the eighth with a bases-clearing double to make it 7-5, but a fly ball ended the inning and Brown worked around a pair of walks to lead-off the ninth to get a strikeout, a fly out, and a ground out to end the game.
Masciangelo and Pimentel-Guerrero added a pair of runs scored to their two-hit days, while Pimentel-Guerrero was on base three times thanks to a walk as was
Jacob Cortez, who added a walk to a 2-for-3 day. Freshman
Michael Perazzo collected the only other hit by a Hornet on the day.
Connor Mattison (2-1) suffered the loss for the Lopes, allowing two runs on six hits, but striking out five over four innings of work.
