Cal Poly Baseball couldn’t keep up with Santa Clara’s early offense, falling 7-4 to the Broncos on Tuesday, April 11 at Baggett Stadium.
The Mustangs (10-19, 6-6 Big West) were coming off a sweep of UC Riverside over the weekend while Santa Clara (17-11, 6-6 West Coast) has now won three in a row.
It was all Broncos early, as a three-run homer in the first and an RBI single in the second allowed them to jump out to a 3-0 lead against Cal Poly freshman righthander Freddy Rodriguez.
However, the Mustangs manufactured a pair of runs in the bottom half of the second to cut into the lead at 3-2.
Santa Clara then answered right back with a blow that was too much to come back from, as the Broncos picked up three runs on a two-run bomb and an RBI single, extending the lead to 7-2.
Despite the lopsided score, perhaps the most exciting moment of the night went in Cal Poly’s favor in the top of the fourth, as the Mustangs turned a triple play, the first in the school’s Division-I history.
With no outs and runners on first and second, junior shortstop Aaron Casillas caught a line drive for the first out, tossed the ball to senior second baseman Taison Corio for the second, who then threw it to junior first baseman Joe Yorke at first base for out number three.
Unfortunately for Cal Poly, however, the defensive momentum did not carry over to their bats.
The Mustangs tacked on two more runs throughout the game while keeping Santa Clara scoreless, but it wasn’t enough in the 7-4 defeat.
Cal Poly will return to Big West play when they take on CSU Bakersfield in a weekend series beginning on Friday, April 14 at Hardt Field.