Junior Chris Kinsey went 4-for-4 with six RBI and junior Dan Smith pitched seven strong innings to lead the Sacramento State baseball team to a 10-5 win over Dartmouth, Monday afternoon at Hornet Field. With the win, Sacramento State earned a split in the four-series with the Big Green while raising their record to 11-11 on the season. Dartmouth dropped to 3-3 overall.Sacramento State jumped out to an early 7-0 lead after scoring two runs in the first and five runs in the second. In the first inning, Dartmouth starter Andrew Brown walked sophomore Everet Rincon and senior Tim Reimer to start the game. After a wild pitch by Brown advanced the runners, Kinsey drove in the game’s first run with a sacrifice fly to right field. Brown would then walk juniors Mikela Olsen and Jesse Schmidt to load the bases before sophomore Pedro Santiago hit a sacrifice fly to right to bring in Reimer.
In the second inning, the Hornets exploded for five runs including a grand-slam by Kinsey. After junior John Acha led off the inning with a single to left field, Brown walked Rincon and Reimer to load the bases for Kinsey. With the count 2-1, Kinsey drove a pitch over the right field wall to record his first career grand-slam. The Elk Grove, Calif., native now has three home runs on the season and gave the Hornets their first slam since Rick Gonzalez accomplished the feat in 2000. After Chris Lapointe entered the contest in relief, Olsen singled to right and later advanced to second on a failed pick-off attempt by the pitcher. Schmidt followed with an infield single to advance Olsen to third before Santiago recorded his second sacrifice fly of the contest.
Dartmouth scored its first run with a sacrifice fly by Ed Lucas in the third but the Hornets answered with an RBI single by freshman Brian Blauser in the fourth, an RBI double by Kinsey in the fifth and an RBI single by Rincon in the sixth, to push the lead to 10-1.
The Big Green would cut the margin to 10-4 after an RBI single by John Huelskamp, a two-run double by Scott Shirrell and a sacrifice fly by Jason DaCosta in the seventh but freshman James Wheeler and junior Andy Mohr helped preserve the win for the Hornets.
Smith (2-1) earned his first win as a starter after allowing four runs (two earned) on eight hits in seven innings of work. Wheeler and Mohr combined to allow only one run on two hits in two innings of relief.
Brown (0-1) was tagged with the loss after giving up six runs on two hits while walking seven in one inning.
Sacramento State will next host Minnesota for a two-game series beginning on Tuesday, March 18, at 2 p.m. The Hornets will end their season-long eight-game homestand on Wednesday, March 19, at 2 p.m. against the Golden Gophers.
