April 7, 2008

San Jose, CA (UWIRE) -- The SJSU baseball team wrapped up a four-game Western Athletic Conference series Sunday against the Rainbows of the University of Hawaii. The 6-2 loss put the Spartans record at 15-13 overall and 6-9 in conference play.

SJSU was only able to capture one of the four games of the weekend series.

In Sunday's game, Hawaii scored first, getting two runs with two outs in the second inning on RBI singles by second baseman Greg Garcia and catcher Landon Hernandez.

The Spartans rallied in the bottom of the second when senior first baseman Sonny Garza got the Spartans' first hit of the game.

Freshman center fielder Jason Martin took a four-pitch walk to put two runners on the base paths. The bases became loaded when Rainbow's starting pitcher Alex Capaul walked junior left fielder Alex Sofranac on five pitches.

Capaul walked freshman right fielder Matt Ellis to walk in the Spartans' first run of the game to cut the Rainbows lead in half, 2-1.

The Rainbows responded in the next inning with another run on an RBI single off the bat of first baseman Kevin Macdonald. After just 2.2 innings, Spartans' junior starting pitcher Scott Sobczak, who took the loss and is now 2-1, was removed from the game and relieved by sophomore Spencer Snodgrass.

The Rainbows scored three more times in the game to beat the Spartans 6-2.

SJSU, which struggled on offense, managed only four hits and left nine runners on base.

"We had no answer offensively for what they were doing," said head coach Sam Piraro, "They had great arms. We were not able to score the ball up."

On Saturday, SJSU split the doubleheader capturing the night cap in a 4-0 shutout performance by junior starting pitcher Ryan Shopshire.

He threw 105 pitches in the complete-game shutout, allowing only four hits, walking one and striking out a career-high 10 batters.

Shopshire said he was pleased with the victory on Saturday night.

"I felt I had all my pitches working (Saturday)," Shopshire said, "I felt very confident with what I was throwing, and I had a very good defense behind me."

The Spartans scored their four runs on a single by junior catcher Anthony Aguilera in the fifth, and then again in the sixth, along with a RBI single by sophomore designated hitter Corey Valine in the same inning.

Aguilera who leads the Spartans with a .339 batting average, caught all four games of the weekend series.

"Our pitchers were really fighting to get good performances going, and we struggled at first, but we got a hold of it and battled," he said. "I was proud of our pitchers - that they fought, competed - and that's all you can ask for."

In the early game of the doubleheader Saturday, SJSU could not keep up with the Rainbow's offense. Even though they scored five runs on nine hits, Hawaii exploded for 12 runs on 18.

The series began Friday night with a battle under the lights, where the Spartans and Rainbows slugged it out for 15 innings getting the loss after four hours and 50 minutes.

Down by five runs in the seventh inning after Hawaii scored three runs in the upper half, SJSU was able to tie the game with a five run rally sparked by Aguilera's single and a double by left fielder Sofranac.

Sophomore third baseman Kyle Bellows singled to right center scoring Sofranac and Valine smoked a two-RBI single through the right side of the infield. Valine would score on a throwing error to tie the game at 6-6.

The stalemate would continue until the 15th inning.

Hawaii put up four runs in the top of the 15th, which proved to be two too many for the Spartans to overcome, whose two-run bottom half of the inning wasn't enough to push them past.

(C) 2008 Spartan Daily via UWIRE