SAN FRANCISCO — BYU baseball gave up four runs in the bottom of the second inning and never recovered, losing 8-3 to San Francisco on Thursday afternoon at Benedetti Diamond.
"We didn't do a very good job of battling at the plate today,” said interim head coach Trent Pratt. “Their starter had a little cut on his fastball and struck out our first four guys. It seemed like we let that get to us and got impatient at the plate. We’ll talk about it tonight as a team and come back ready to get after it tomorrow.”
San Francisco (22-23, 10-9) also got off to a quick start offensively with four runs in the second inning on three hits, two walks and a Cougar error.
BYU (22-17, 7-9) got a run back in the top of the third inning off a solo home run by catcher Collin Reuter. The freshman blasted the ball over the left-field wall to cut the Dons’ lead to 4-1.
San Francisco extended its lead to 5-1 in the bottom of the fourth thanks to a lead-off double and a clutch two-out, two-base hit. The Dons picked up three more insurance runs in the eighth for an 8-1 advantage.
The Cougars had runners in scoring position in the sixth and seventh innings but were unable to come up with a key hit to drive in a run. BYU did pick up two runs on two hits and two walks in the top of the ninth for a final score of 8-3. With bases loaded, Jacob Rogers singled to score Ryan Sepede and Austin Deming, who had back-to-back walks to open the top of the ninth.
On the day, BYU collected six hits, while San Francisco had 12. Reuter and Rogers each produced three RBI for the Cougars.
Game two of the three-game conference series is scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. PDT. The game will be broadcast live on the WCC Network as well as the BYU Radio Network—BYU Radio 107.9 FM, BYU Radio App, BYUCougars.com and the BYU Cougars app.