Broncos Strike Out in First Series of the Year
Following rain delays, Baseball drops all three against San Jose State
Kyle Lydon
The Santa Clara
February 21, 2019
Just like the weather, the Santa Clara Baseball team got off to a cold start this past weekend in their first three games of the season. After the originally-scheduled Friday and Saturday games were both postponed due to inclement weather, the Broncos completed their three-game series against San Jose State with a double header on Sunday and the series finale on Monday.
San Jose State dominated from start to finish, sweeping the Broncos and winning the three games by scores of 8-5, 4-3 and 20-10, respectively.
Despite the tough start, the Broncos saw promising debuts from two first-years, Matt Jew and Dawson Brigman. Jew earned his first collegiate hit in the bottom of the sixth inning of game one with a homerun to left field. He also had a towering homerun in the bottom of the fourth inning of game two, tying the game up at 2-2 and giving himself a homerun in both games of Sunday’s doubleheader.
Not wanting to miss out on the action, Brigman also homered in the second game of the series, getting the ball out of the park quickly to left field and giving the Broncos a 3-2 lead in the fourth.
In the series finale on Monday, Jew and Brigman wrapped up the weekend with multihit games. Brigman went 3-for-5 while Jew went 2-for-4 (2 R, 2 RBIs) and collected his third multi-hit game in as many chances over the opening weekend.
In game one, the Spartans got to Broncos’ starter junior Keegan McCarville early, scoring three runs in the first inning. They later added four more in the fifth inning, pushing their lead to 7-0 at the time. With a comfortable lead, they were able to hold off a late Santa Clara run to win 8-5. McCarville went four and a third innings and allowed four earned runs. For the Spartans, starter Andrew Mitchel went four shutout innings allowing only two hits and striking out six.
In part two of Sunday’s opening day, San Jose State took a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the fourth, before the Broncos put up three runs to reclaim the lead, including Jew and Brigman’s homeruns mentioned earlier. The Spartans retook the lead in the top half of the sixth on a game-tying RBI single by James Shimashita (1-for-3, 1 R, 2 RBIs) followed by a go-ahead RBI single by Troy Viola.
The Broncos were able to get the tying run in scoring position in the bottom of the ninth, but were unable to capitalize on the opportunity. San Jose State’s pitchers Tevin Cadola and Josh Zanger combined to allow three runs on seven hits and struck out eight.
Finally, the series finale on Monday was a battle between offenses.
Both teams’ defenses struggled to stop the other from scoring, as the Broncos and Spartans combined for 30 runs and 33 hits and the final score looked more like the score of a football game.
The Broncos held an 8-7 lead after five innings, but San Jose State was able to string together a crushing two-out rally in the sixth to take a 13-8 lead. Their momentum carried over to the seventh inning, as they hung another crooked number and added seven runs to their lead, giving them all the run insurance they would need. Anders Davidson was credited for the win for San Jose State while junior Michael Praszker took the loss for Santa Clara.
Although opening weekend did not go as planned for the Broncos, the outlook for the 2019 season remains positive.
According to Coach Rusty Filter in an interview prior to the start of the season, this year’s team is fortunate to have a lot of strong leadership. This will prove to be important as the team features many young players this year.
“We brought in a large number of new players through junior college and graduating seniors from high school,” Filter said. “We addressed pretty much every position on the field. We have a freshman that can play each position. The junior college players are all pitchers, really helping us supply some depth to the pitching staff.”
“We’ve been working really hard,” junior Jason Dicochea said. “We worked hard in the fall, took some time to bond a lot with these new guys, show them how we go about our business, and I think things are coming together really well right now.”
“Our offense can score runs. I think we’ll be pretty good this year,” he added.
“We’re just excited to get playing,” Filter said. And with opening day in the books, the 2019 baseball season is officially underway.
The Broncos are set to take on Pac-12 opponent Washington State next with a fourgame home series beginning today at 6 p.m. and continuing throughout Family Weekend.
Contact Kyle Lydon at klydon@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.