Hornets' Five-Run Seventh The Difference In 11-6 Loss For CSU Baseball

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The Chicago State baseball team came back twice, but it was not enough as the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) leading Sacramento State Hornets defeated the Cougars 11-6 at John Smith Field on Saturday afternoon (May 3).
 
The Hornets got the scoring started with an unearned run in the bottom of the second as Brandon Hunley had an infield single, but an error allowed a runner to score to make it 1-0.
 
The Cougars responded with a run in the next half inning. Junior Robert Swenson (Mason City, Iowa/Mason City) led off with a walk and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt. The next hitter junior Jared Patterson (Ventura, Calif./Buena) ripped a base hit to left –center to score Swenson and tie the WAC matchup at 1-1.
 
Chicago State added to their lead with two more runs in the next frame. With one out, junior Julian Russell (Chicago, Ill./Gordon Tech) reached on an infield single and junior Matt Schmidt (Dundee, Ill./Jacobs) followed with a single to right. Russell, running on the pitch, advanced to third, but scored on the throwing error from right field. Two batters later, senior Nathan Poff (Sellersburg, Ind./New Albany) singled in Schmidt to make it 3-1.
 
The back-and-forth action continued when the Hornets retook the lead, 4-3 on a three-run home run by Clay Cederquist in the home half of fourth stanza.
 
Sacramento State scored two more unearned runs in the sixth inning to tack on to their lead. The Cougars tied the game with three runs in the seventh highlighted by an RBI double by junior Mattingly Romanin (Burlington, ONT/Notre Dame) and a RBI ground out by junior Chase Matheson (McHenry, Ill./McHenry).
 
The Hornets regained the lead with a five spot in the seventh inning spearheaded by Brandon Hunley's three-run home run.
 
CSU had four players with multi-hit games (Patterson, Romanin, Schmidt and Poff). It's the 22^nd time that the Cougars have had at least 10 hits in a game. Hall took the loss for the Chicago State to fall to 3-4 on the season while Alex Palsha picked up his fifth win of the year for the Hornets. Sacramento State starter Sam Long entered the game with a 2.29 ERA. The Cougars hung a season-high six runs on Long to give him a no-decision.
 
Hunley had four hits, three RBI and two runs scored while Cederquist had three hits, three runs scored and four RBI in the win for Sacramento State.
 
Chicago State fell to 14-30 and 3-14 in the WAC while Sacramento State improved to 30-18 and 16-4 in the conference. The two teams wrap up the series on Sunday (May 4) with first pitch scheduled for 1:00 p.m. PT.