SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Winners of four of its last six, the Sacramento State baseball team closes out a six-game homestand on Tuesday (April 14) at 6 p.m., welcoming San Francisco to John Smith Field for the second meeting between the two schools this season.
It will be the final home game until the beginning of May for the Hornets, who play their next eight games — including a three-game weekend series against No. 1 UCLA (April 24-26) — on the road.
PLAY BALL!
WHAT: San Francisco (18-15, 9-3 WCC) at Sacramento State (15-22, 3-3 WAC)
WHEN: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
TIME: 6 PM PT
WHERE: Sacramento, Calif.
STADIUM: John Smith Field
TICKETS: HornetSports.com
WATCH: ESPN+ | WAC International
STATS: HornetSports.com
GAME NOTES: San Francisco | Western Athletic Conference
ABOUT THE DONS
• San Francisco enters the week with an 18-15 overall record and a 9-3 mark in the West Coast Conference
• The Dons are coming off a series win over conference rival San Diego over the weekend, winning the final two games against the Toreros
• USF has gone 9-5 since falling to Sacramento State, 8-3, at home back on March 17
• Tuesday marks only the 10th road contest for San Francisco this season, which is 15-9 at home and 3-6 away from Benedetti Diamond, having lost three of its last four road contests
• Junior catcher Trevor Harmon is the team's leading hitter, batting .321 on the year with 15 runs scored, a pair of home runs, and nine RBI
• Grad infielder TJ Rogers is batting .284 with 26 runs on the year, adding nine doubles, a team-high nine home runs and 16 RBI
• As a team, the Dons are hitting .251 with 26 home runs and are averaging 5.06 runs per game
• As a pitching staff, San Francisco sports a 5.18 ERA and 265 strikeouts over 297 innings, while opponents are batting .268 against them
SERIES NOTES
• San Francisco leads the all-time series with Sacramento State, 73-66-1, after the Hornets posted an 8-3 win in the Bay back on March 17
• That win was the second straight in the series for the Hornets, who have now won four of the last six overall against the Dons
• However, the two schools have split the last 10 meetings against one another evenly
• Sacramento State has won the last two midweek meetings between the two programs, adding a 7-1 win at home back in 2024
• Last season, the two teams split a four-game home-and-home series to kick-off the 2025 campaign with the Hornets posting wins in games one (4-3) and four (19-11) and the Dons winning the middle two (8-5 and 15-7)
• The Hornets are 37-36-1 at home against San Francisco, which each school winning three times in the last six head-to-head meetings in Sacramento
• The winning team in each of the last four meetings has scored at least eight runs
• Only one of the last six games has been decided by fewer than three runs — the 4-3 Hornet victory to open last season's series
CONFERENCE CALL
• Sacramento State is a combined 321-326-4 (.496) against the current West Coast Conference baseball lineup, having faced all 10 of the league's members
• Tuesday marks the final meeting with a WCC school on the diamond this year, with the Hornets posting a 3-3 record in its previous six games — five of those coming against Pacific
• 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 107 wins against Pacific are the most for the Hornets against any one WCC school, followed by 66 wins against both Saint Mary's and San Francisco
MIDWEEK MADNESS
• This week's contest marks the 10th midweek game of the year for the Hornets, who are 4-5 in their previous seven this season
• Sacramento State has won four of its previous six, posting wins over Pacific (10-0 in seven innings on March 11), San Francisco (8-3 on March 17), splitting a pair at Kansas with an 11-1 loss on March 24 and a 7-4 win on March 25, and handing Nevada an 11-2 defeat on April 6
• This week marks on the fifth midweek game at home this year where the Hornets are 2-2
• This year's four midweek wins has surpassed last year's total (3-8) and are the most since the 2024 squad finished with six midweek wins
• Of the team's last 32 midweek games, a little less than half (15) have been decided by two runs or fewer, with 11 of those 15 decided by a single run
LOOKING AHEAD
• Following Tuesday's game against the Dons, Sacramento State opens a run of eight straight on the road with a three-game series against Western Athletic Conference rival UT Arlington
• The series begins Friday (April 17) at 4 p.m. PT, followed by a Noon PT start for game two on Saturday (April 18), and a 10 a.m. PT first pitch for Sunday's (April 19) finale
• The Mavericks have a midweek game against Dallas Baptist on Tuesday (April 14) before hosting Sacramento State
HORNET SHORT HOPS
• Sacramento State is coming off its first Western Athletic Conference series win of the year, taking two out of three at home against reigning league tournament champion Utah Valley
• Dodging downpours and Wolverine bats all weekend, the Hornets posted a 7-2 win in the series opener and rallied for a 9-5 win in the final around an 11-1 loss in game two
• Four Hornets who have played in at least half of the midweek games this season are hitting better than .300 on the season: Ryan Ellis (.385), Erick Dessens (.375), Jace Jeremiah (.346), and Jakob Poturnak (.313)
• As a team, Sacramento State is batting .253 in midweek games, outscoring opponents, 47-39
• Meanwhile, the Hornets' pitching staff has been stingy, limiting opponents to a .219 average with eight pitchers posting an opponents batting average under .200
• Poturnak (16) and freshman Sam Harry (10) have combined to drive in 26 of the team's 45 runs during midweek contests and have hit six of the team's eight home runs in those games
• Dessens leads the team with 15 hits, adding seven runs, two doubles, and four home runs in midweek games
• Ellis leads the team with eight runs scored and has walked a team-high nine times in six midweek appearances
• Freshman RHP Devin James (vs. Nevada) and junior RHP Konner Entz (vs. Fresno State) made their first career starts in last week's midweek contests, both throwing three shutout innings in their respective outings while combining to allow just two hits, walk three, and strike out four
• A little bit of table-setter, a little bit of run-producer, a whole lot of getting on base was the story of the week for senior Ryan Ellis, who did just about everything for the Hornets
• Ellis posted a 1.822 OPS against Nevada, Fresno State, and Utah Valley, hitting .500 (5-for-10) with a 1.100 slugging percentage and a .722 on-base percentage, scoring five runs, doubling four times, adding a triple, and walking eight times
• His 23 walks this year are second on the team behind only Luis Pimentel-Guerrero's 24 bases on balls, while his .513 on-base percentage is tops on the team
• Sophomore outfielder Brett Ott extended his hitting streak to six with hits in all three games over the weekend and has reached base safely in each of his last 10 contests — the longest active streaks in both categories by a Hornet hitter
• During his hitting streak, Ott is batting .421 (8-for-19) with five runs scored, two extra-base hits, three RBI, and four walks
• Freshman RHP Trevor Wilson picked up his second career win in the series finale against Utah Valley, throwing five hitless and scoreless innings of relief — including retiring the first 15 batters he faced into the ninth
• The five innings were a career high for the freshman, while the four strikeouts are tied for his second-highest total of the season
• Senior RHP Ethan Lay threw a season-high 123 pitches in his series-opening win, striking out 10 while walking only one over eight innings of work
• The 10 strikeouts marked his third start with double digits in the category this season (13 against Saint Joseph's back on Feb. 20 and added 11 more against Winthrop on March 19) and the fourth in his Sacramento State career
• Junior RHP Kurt Marton logged his first collegiate save in the series finale against Utah Valley, needing only six pitches to record the final out with the tying run on deck
• He is the fourth Hornet hurler to record a save this year behind Wilson (3), Andrew Monson (1), and Sean Carey (1)
