LOS ANGELES -- Cal State LA's baseball team came up short Saturday in its California Collegiate Athletic Association series finale against Cal State East Bay.
The Golden Eagles committed four errors that led to seven unearned runs in an 8-4 loss to the Pioneers at Reeder Field. Cal State LA (14-24, 9-19 CCAA) was seeking its first series win of the season, but had to settle for a split with Cal State East Bay (19-19, 12-16 CCAA).
Will Picketts went 4-for-4 with two doubles and a home run and
Noe Garcia had a pair of hits and scored a run for the Golden Eagles.
The shaky defense spoiled what was a strong start for
Micah Hee, who was charged with the loss after going 4 2/3 innings and allowing only one earned run and, in actuality, the inability to turn a double play was the reason that run scored. In all, Hee essentially induced seven innings worth of outs, but had a hard-luck loss to show for it.
The Pioneers, meanwhile, didn't commit an error and were solid backing up starter Tristin Tatum, who allowed seven hits and four runs over six innings. He didn't walk a batter and struck out two. Ethan Brodsky tossed three scoreless innings to wrap things up and record his second save of the season.
Christian Longoria and
Mikell Chavez combined to throw 4 1/3 scoreless innings for the Golden Eagles. Longoria allowed three hits and struck out three over 2 1/3 sharp innings and Chavez, who got the save in Friday's wild doubleheader opener, didn't allow a hit over two scoreless innings with two strikeouts.
Picketts hit a solo home run in the second to stake the Golden Eagles to a quick 1-0 lead, but things unraveled in an unsightly way in the third for Cal State LA. With runners on first and third and one out, Hee induced what looked like a perfect double-play grounder, but an errant throw to second required Picketts to do some fancy footwork to record just the one out as a run scored. After a single once again put runners on first and third, another error resulted in a run that gave the Pioneers a 2-1 lead. Samuel Esparza followed with a two-run triple to make it 4-1 and a throwing error on another infield grounder allowed another run to score. By the time the dust had settled, Cal State East Bay had five runs on three hits, three errors and a potential double-play that wasn't turned.
A two-out error in the fifth led to three more unearned runs. Francisco Pedraza had the big blow of the game with a three-run home run to left to make it 8-1.
To their credit, the Golden Eagles mounted a comeback. Cal State LA got a run back in the bottom of the fifth on a two-out single by
Noe Garcia and a run-scoring double by
Nick Atkins.Â
The Golden Eagles struck for two more runs in the sixth on a double by Drozdowski, a run-scoring double by Picketts and a run-scoring single by
Gerardo Castaneda to make it 8-4 that's how the score remained over the final three innings.
Cal State LA will return to action on Friday in the opener of a four-game series at Sonoma State.
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