SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Fresh off its first series win of the season, the Sacramento State baseball team makes the short jaunt south for its first midweek game of the year, taking on Pacific on Wednesday night (Feb. 25) at 6 p.m. at Klein Family Field in Stockton, Calif. It's the first road contest of 2026 for the Hornets, who opened the year with seven straight at home with weekend series against UC Irvine and Saint Joseph's.

PLAY BALL!
WHAT: Sacramento State (3-4, 0-0 WAC) at Pacific (3-4, 0-0 WCC)
WHEN: Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026
TIME: 6 PM PT
WHERE: Stockton, Calif.
STADIUM: Klein Family Field
WATCH: ESPN+
STATS: PacificTigers.com
TICKETS: PacificTigers.com

ABOUT THE TIGERS
• Pacific enters the week with a 3-4 overall record after splitting a four-game series with Utah Valley and losing 2-of-3 to Utah Tech in the first two weeks of the regular season
• Wednesday's game against the Hornets will mark the team's third straight Western Athletic Conference foe for the Tigers, who then face a former member of the WAC (now with the Mountain West Conference) in Grand Canyon in Phoenix this coming weekend
• The game against Sacramento State will be the last in a stretch of eight straight home games to start the year for Pacific
• Sophomore outfielder JT Shank is the team's leading hitter through the first seven games, batting .320 with three doubles and six RBI
• Sophomore infielder/pitcher Robert Orr is also above the .300 mark on the season, batting .318 on the season
• As a team, the Tigers are hitting .237 with 14 doubles and three home runs while standing tied in the scoring column with their opponents, 34-34
• Pacific's pitching staff enters the week with a 4.50 ERA over 66 innings, holding opponents to a .239 average and posting 82 strikeouts against 35 walks.

SERIES NOTES
• Sacramento State leads the all-time series with Pacific by a 105-80-1 count according to records that date back to the 1950 season
• The Hornets are 60-35-1 at home against the Tigers and 45-45 on the road
• Wednesday marks the first of five scheduled meetings with Pacific this season as Sacramento State hosts the Tigers twice on March 11 and March 13, followed by two more meetings in Stockton on March 14-15.
• According to available records, the 105 victories against Pacific are the third-most against any one school in the program's history behind only 149 wins against UC Davis and 116 against Chico State
• Sacramento State took three of the four meetings with Pacific last season, winning two of a three-game weekend set against the Tigers in early March, then posting a 13-3 midweek win on the road a couple weeks later
• All three of those games in the weekend series last season were decided by a single run as the two teams split a pair of 6-5 decisions in the first two games before the Hornets earned a walk-off 10-inning win in the series finale
• Sacramento State has won seven of the last 10 meetings with their local rival dating back to 2022 with three of those wins coming on the road

CONFERENCE CALL
• Sacramento State is a combined 318-323-4 (.496) against the current West Coast Conference baseball lineup, having faced all 10 of the league's members
• The Hornets will face only two WCC schools on the diamond this year, adding midweek games against San Francisco on March 17 (away) and April 14 (home) in addition to the five games against the Tigers this year
• Sacramento State was a combined 6-4 against the WCC last season, going 3-1 against Pacific, 2-2 against San Francisco, and 1-1 against Saint Mary's
• That record does not include a 2-1 series win over Seattle U as the Redhawks were members of the WAC in 2025 prior to aligning with the WCC last summer
• The Hornets are 30-20 against Seattle U, with all but seven of those games coming as WAC rivals from 2013-25
• The 105 wins against Pacific are the most for the Hornets against any one WCC school, followed by 66 wins against Saint Mary's and 65 more against San Francisco

MIDWEEK MADNESS
• Sacramento State was just 3-8 in 11 midweek games last season
• Five of those were decided by a single run, with another ending in a two-run defeat
• The Hornets were 1-4 in those five single-run midweek contests
• Of the team's last 24 midweek games, half (12) have been decided by two runs or fewer, with nine of those 12 decided by a single run
• Since 2011, Sacramento State is 14-10 in midweek games against Pacific, having faced the Tigers in a midweek contest in each of the last six seasons after substituting a four-game series for midweek games in 2019

LOOKING AHEAD
• Following Wednesday's clash in Stockton, the Hornets will play a three-game home-and-home series against California
• Sacramento State travels to Berkeley, Calif., for games one and three of the series on Friday (Feb. 27) and Sunday (March 1) at 6 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively, while hosting its Bay Area rival on Saturday (Feb. 28) at 2 p.m. at John Smith Field

HORNET SHORT HOPS
• Sacramento State enters its first midweek game of the year after winning its first weekend series of the season by taking 3-of-4 from visiting Saint Joseph's in the first-ever meeting between the two programs
• The Hornets won game one by a 4-1 score, dropped game two by a 5-4 count in 12 innings, then took the final two games of the series by the scores of 4-2 and 21-2
• The series win over Saint Joseph's improved Sacramento State to 4-2-4 in its last 10 non-conference four-game series, which also included wins over South Dakota State (2025), North Dakota State (2023), and Northern Illinois (2022) and split series with Ball State (2025), San Francisco (2021 and 2025) and Santa Clara (2021)
• The 12 innings in game two of the series marked Sacramento State's longest game (in terms of innings) since the Hornets played Tarleton State in a 14-inning marathon on April 26, 2024
• Meanwhile, the 3:43 time of game was Sacramento State's longest (in terms of time) since outlasting Seattle U for a 7-6 win in 11 innings in 3:45 at home
• Two more Hornet newcomers made their debuts in the green and gold in the series with the Hawks over the weekend — both of those coming on the mound as right-handers Konner Entz and Ari Kligman pitched in the series finale
• Sacramento State starting pitching has been outstanding in the first two weekend series of the year, posting a combined 1.49 ERA over 36.1 innings, allowing just six earned runs and striking out 44 hitters against only six walks
• Combined, opposing hitters are batting just .182 against the Hornet starting arms
• One of those arms, senior right-hander Ethan Lay, carried a perfect game into the seventh inning in game two against Saint Joseph's, finishing with a no-decision, but striking out 13 without a walk against the Hawks
• The 13 strikeouts were a career high and made him the 16th Hornet in school history to strikeout at least 13 batters in a game — the first since Travis Adams (who made his Major League debut with the Minnesota Twins last summer) finished with 13 at Northern Colorado on April 24, 2021
• The performance marked Lay's second double-digit strikeout game of his Hornet career after striking out 11 against Pacific on March 9 of last season
• Coupled with his eight strikeouts against UC Irvine on Feb. 13, Lay has now struck out eight-or-more batters in a game five times
• Junior right-hander Kurt Marton picked up his first win as a Hornet in game three of the series with Saint Joseph's, striking out nine without a walk over 6.2 innings of work in a 4-2 win
• That came after six shutout innings (two hits allowed) with six strikeouts against UC Irvine on Feb. 14
• Marton has year to walk a batter in 12.2 innings as a Hornet
• Sophomore right-hander Chase Sorlie made his first collegiate start in the opener against the Hawks, striking out a pair in three-plus innings
• Ian Winterhalder picked up his first win of the year with four perfect innings in relief of Sorlie, striking out four
• Overall, the Hornet bullpen was stingy last weekend, posting a 1.08 ERA and a .158 average against (9-for-57) over 16.2 innings of work, allowing just two earned on nine hits while striking out 23 against four walks
• Both senior Andrew Monson and freshman Trevor Wilson posted their first saves of the year in the series against Saint Joseph's with Wilson notching the first of his collegiate career in the opener and Monson doing the honors in game three
• Monson's save was the third of his career, but his first in a weekend series after he saved midweek victories against Fresno State (March 25) and UC Davis (April 15) in 2025
• Offensively, the 21 runs scored by the Hornets in the series finale against Saint Joseph's were the most in a single game since a 21-9 victory over Nevada in 2024
• The 22 hits against the Hawks were also a season high and the most since Sacramento State finished with 23 in a game-two victory at Grand Canyon on May 3 of last season
• Of those 22 hits in Sunday's finale, eight of those went for doubles — the most in single game for the Hornets since they had eight at Grand Canyon on May 8, 2022
• Sacramento State scored runs in each of the first five innings in the finale against Saint Joseph's — the first time that has happened since scoring all six of its runs in the first five frames of a 6-2 win against California Baptist on April 19, 2025
• The six-run eighth inning against the Hawks was the team's largest single-inning run total since the Hornets scored seven times in the seventh inning of a 9-2 win at Utah Valley on May 11 of last year
• Senior Luis Pimentel-Guerrero, who hit a team-high .533 (8-for-15) in the series against Saint Joseph's, currently holds the Hornets' longest hitting streak at five games, while teammates Jakob Poturnak, Brett Ott, and Sam Harry all have three-game hitting streaks
• Pimentel-Guerrero, Poturnak, and Harry have all reached base safely in all seven games thus far this season
• After batting .368 on the weekend, five (four doubles and a home run) of Poturnak's seven hits have gone for extra bases
• Both Poturnak and Pimentel-Guerrero slugged home runs on the weekend with the former hitting his first since May 9 of last season at Utah Valley and the latter his first since March 28 of last year at Tarleton State