SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The Sacramento State baseball team took game one, 6-3, but dropped game two, 4-1, in a doubleheader against Utah Valley on Sunday afternoon at John Smith Field.
The Hornets record this season is now 6-18 while Utah Valley's sports a 6-13 mark.
Sacramento State will host Pacific on Tuesday before playing at Seattle next weekend. The Hornets open up Western Athletic Conference play at Hawai'i on April 8.
Game One: W, 6-3
Sacramento State's bats came alive early, despite the 10 a.m. start of game one, as the Hornets scored runs in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings. The Hornets pushed singles runs across the plate in four different innings and plated two in the third.
In the third inning, already down 2-1, AJ Nunez led of with a single to right field and moved to second on a passed ball. Carter Loud struck out swining in the next at-bat, but raced to first after the dropped third strike scooted away from the catcher. Nunez took third on the play. Kirby Young drove home Nunez with a single and later in the inning, Loud scored on Andrew Ayers' sacrifice fly to right.
The Hornets had the lead after third and the pitching staff would not give it up.
Maas made his first weekend start of the season and showed his midweek success was no fluke. The senior from Tracy, Calif., allowed a two-run homer in the first inning but mowed through the lineup until Utah Valley scored once again in the seventh inning.
Maas (2-2) earned the win and finished with three runs on five hits in seven innings with six strikeouts and just two walks. His pair of wins is the most on the team and he also has a team-best 2.81 ERA. No other Hornets pitcher with more than 10 innings pitched has less than a sub 3.00 ERA.
Brandon Creel was fantastic in relief as the sophomore from Sacramento pitched two innings of one-hit ball for his first career save.
The bottom of the Sacramento State lineup did most of the damage offensively, as No. 7 hitter David Del Grande had two hits, No. 8 hitter Nunez had three hits and No. 9 hitter Loud had one hit.
Sacramento State 6, Utah Valley 3 (Mar 27, 2011 at Sacramento, Calif.) (Game 1) ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Utah Valley......... 200 000 100 - 3 6 2 (5-13)
Sacramento State.... 012 110 01X - 6 9 0 (6-17)
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Pitchers: Utah Valley - SARGENT, Brock; CHADWICK, Ryan(5); GRAY, Zane(8). Sacramento State -
Maas, Karl; Creel, Brandon(8).
Win-Maas, Karl(2-2) Save-Creel, Brandon(1) Loss-SARGENT, Brock(0-2) T-2:23 A-150
HR UVU - McWHORTER, Cole (1).
Weather: 52 degrees, partly cloudy
SARGENT, B faced 2 batters in the 5th.
Game Two: L, 4-1
Utah Valley jumped out to an early lead with a three-run first inning and that was more than enough run support for starter Blake Krahenbuhl.
Krahenbuhl (3-1) earned the win after he allowed just one run on five hits in 8.1 innings with two strikeouts and four walks. Reliever Josh Swenson came into record the last two outs of the game and tallied his second save of the season. Sam Kuykendall (0-5) took the loss for the Hornets.
After Kuykendall allowed three runs on two hits and three walks in the first, the Hornets locked down the Wolverines.
Reliever Dallas Chadwick allowed just one run on four hits in four innings and Brandon Sandoval did not allow a run while giving up just one hit in four innings pitched.
But the Sacramento State offense could only muster five total hits and one run in the game despite striking out just three times. Hunter Adrian had two of the Hornets' five hits.
Chris Benson had a two-RBI double in the first inning for Utah Valley while Cole McWhorter and Billy Burgess had multi-hit games.
