SAN FRANCISCO—At least 200 fans watched the San Francisco Dons defeat BYU’s baseball team 5-2 at spacious 41,915-seat AT&T Park, home of the Major League San Francisco Giants.
BYU (8-17 overall and 1-5 in the West Coast Conference) built a 2-0 lead in the first inning but couldn’t produce after that point even with ace Kolton Mahoney on the mound.
“As good as we played yesterday, it’s a 180 turn today,” BYU coach Mike Littlewood said. “We handed this game to them on a silver platter. We started swinging at balls up around our shoulders. We were pressing for stuff out of the zone. Every one of our mistakes led to runs. We did what we wanted to do pitching-wise, but we just didn’t make plays.”
San Francisco (11-10, 2-4) capitalized on BYU miscues to take a 3-2 lead in the fourth when preseason All-American Bradley Zimmer led off with the first of his two singles in the game and the first of his two steals and two runs scored.
The Cougars stranded pairs of runners in the fourth, sixth and eighth innings.
In the eighth, BYU mounted its strongest effort since the first inning. Eric Urry led off with a walk and Brock Whitney singled with no outs, forcing a Don pitching change. That change resulted in three consecutive outs, the first two being strikeouts.
BYU returns to play at Utah on Tuesday at 7 p.m., at Smith Ballpark in game two of four in the Deseret First Duel.