SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – On Friday afternoon in the semifinals of the NCAA DII West Regional, the CSUSB baseball team defeated Azusa Pacific at home in a thrilling 10-9 victory. For the first time in program history, the Yotes won their 40
th game of the season. With just one more win, they will advance to their first-ever NCAA Super Regional.
Starting pitching dominated the first half of the game, with both starters allowing minimal hits.
Dylan O'Connor toed the rubber for the Yotes, striking out six batters in 6.0 innings while allowing four earned runs. In the fifth inning, O'Connor struck out Brett Soria swinging on what was seemingly a normal strikeout. However, this strikeout carried a little extra weight, as it was CSUSB's 397
th of the season – breaking the team record for most strikeouts in a season. Appropriately, it was CSUSB's strikeout leader O'Connor that broke the record, as he leads the team and ranks second in the CCAA with 82 on the season.
For those keeping a tally, the 2023 team has now broken the program win record, hit record, runs scored record, RBI record, and strikeouts record - all within the past two weeks.
After falling behind 4-1 in the sixth, the Yotes made some noise when
Takuto Kataoka doubled down the left field line to score a run and make the score 4-2. The very next inning, the offense broke through, scoring five runs on three hits to take their first lead of the day. This started when Kataoka pushed a run across on a fielder's choice, making the game 4-3. The next batter,
Riley Parker, then hit a crucial double down the left field line to score two runs and make the game 5-4 in favor of the Yotes. The final blow of the inning came when
DeShawn Johnson reached on an error by the shortstop that would have ended the inning, allowing two more runs to score.
In the top of the ninth, CSUSB struggled to close the door on the Cougars, allowing four runs to score. With two outs and the bases loaded, APU hit a high fly ball down the right field line that landed perfectly in between all three fielders. This allowed two runs to score, giving Azusa Pacific a 9-8 lead.
In the bottom of the ninth,
Jason Shedlock led off the inning with a single to right field. A batter later,
Daryl Ruiz reached base on an errant throw by the third baseman to put runners on first and second.
Giovanni Del Negro followed that with a hit by pitch, loading the bases for
Danny Garcia with one out. On the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Garcia smacked a ball up the middle for a single, bringing in both the tying and winning runs to give the Yotes their 40
th win of the season.
Up Next
The Yotes will play the Cougars tomorrow, May 20
th, at 11:00 AM at Fiscalini Field. Should the Cougars win that game, a second game will be played 30 minutes after. If the Yotes win at any point tomorrow, they will advance to their first-ever NCAA Super Regional.
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