EUGENE, Ore. – Cal Poly Baseball did pretty much everything right against Arizona.
Starter Griffin Naess turned in a quality start, going seven innings and kept Arizona off the basepaths giving up just two hits and three walks. At one point he sat down 14 straight Wildcats.
Offensively, seven of the nine in the starting lineup collected a hit. Casey Murray Jr., Cam Hoiland and Dante Vachini all turned in two hit performances clustered at the bottom half of the lineup.
Cal Poly quintupled Arizona’s hit total, 10-2 in favor of the Mustangs. Yet at the end of the game, it was Arizona walking away with the 3-2 victory.
Arizona starter Owen Kramkowski danced in and out of trouble all day long, going seven innings as well giving up just one run. He stranded nine baserunners.
“He filled up the zone and had good stuff.” Hoiland said. “He trusted his approach to getting us out. We stayed in our game and we found success, we just weren’t able to string it together.”
That was the issue all day long for the Mustangs. 3-16 (.167 BA) with runners on and 1-10 (.100) mark with them in scoring position.
Arizona did string their two hits together. A two-out walk in the second inning led to a Tommy Splaine RBI triple. Easton Breyfogle followed that with a homer over the right center wall to make it 3-0 Arizona in a flash.
After the second inning, Naess cruised. Arizona got a pair of walks in the eighth but he quickly rolled a double play ball to get out of the inning. Those were the only two baserunners for Arizona past the second inning.
“I just stuck to the plan,” Naess said. “I knew that innings like that happen throughout baseball games… we want to come back and just get as many zeroes as we can.”
“I think our whole approach was trying to see him up, and he had a lot of stuff that would get us to chase low,” Arizona’s Easton Breyfogle said. “I think throughout the game we kind of forgot what our plan was and didn’t execute it well in the second half obviously.”
Jake Torres collected a 1-2-3 eighth in relief for Naess with a strikeout.
Jack Collins crushed two balls, one with the bases loaded in the fourth that would have given Cal Poly a lead and one in the eighth that would have tied it. Both hooked just foul as Arizona dodged getting dinged.
A minor breakthrough came in the sixth for Cal Poly, with Dylan Kordic shooting one against a shift through the left side of the infield for an RBI.
Hoiland halved the deficit with a solo shot off Wildcat reliever Garrett Hicks to make it 3-2 in the eighth.
A leadoff single in the ninth put the tying run on base, but a 5-4-3 double play ended the game.
“We had our opportunities and played with them the entire time,” head coach Larry Lee said. “We had opportunities early, I think in about three different innings, and we didn’t cash in.”
For Cal Poly it means heading back to PK Park in less than 24 hours, with an elimination game against the loser of Oregon-Utah Valley.
“Losing one of the first games, you have to play five. That’s where your offense really has to step up,” Lee said.
“Last weekend we had to battle back and play UCI twice in the championship. We won both of them,” Naess said. “We’ve just been checking boxes all season. It’s another box to check.”
That game happens Saturday, May 31 at noon in PK Park, the winner surviving another day and the loser going home.
