Benjy Egel
benjyegel.md@gmail.com
Early in the season, the one run games were falling in favor of the Mustangs.
Now, they’re not.
With their second one-run victory over Cal Poly in just as many nights, the Fighting Irish celebrated Saturday after defeating No. 20 Cal Poly 6-5 in Baggett Stadium.
Nick Torres cracked a solo home run as one of his three hits, extending his hitting streak to 13 games, but the Mustangs (15-4) could not rally all the way back after falling behind 5-0 in the third inning.
“Honestly, I try not to think of it so much from an individual standpoint,” Torres said. “Really, what matters is that we didn’t come out of here with that W, and obviously that’s frustrating.”
Freshman designated hitter Brian Mundell, whose three-run home run ultimately won the opening game of the series, also had three hits on Saturday.
Notre Dame third baseman Eric Jagielo quickly began the scoring with a towering home run in the top of the first inning.
The Irish then did most of their damage against starting pitcher Bryan Granger in the third, starting with a sacrifice fly by first baseman Robert Mancini. Designated hitter Phil Mosey followed with a single to right, scoring another run. A walk loaded the bases, then shortstop Lane Richards bounced a hit up the middle, scoring two and sending Granger to the showers.
Reliever Michael Holback allowed just one run in 4 2/3 innings, giving the Mustangs’ offense a chance to fight back. He was pulled for Reed Reilly, who struck out three in 1 2/3 innings.
The Mustangs squandered a run-scoring chance in the second inning. After two leadoff singles, Torres was doubled up on Tommy Plushkell’s line drive to short.
Pluschkell’s day got worse with runners at the corners in the bottom of the fourth. He jammed a ball softly back to the mound, and center fielder David Armendariz was caught off first for another double play.
Back-to-back doubles by shortstop Peter Van Gansen and second baseman Denver Chavez pushed the Mustangs’ first run across the board in the third frame, and the middle infielders used some small ball to scratch another run across in the fifth.
Van Gansen slapped a chopper back to the hill and Notre Dame pitcher Nick McCarty caught it over his shoulder running backwards. He then threw a hook shot to first that pulled Mancini off the bag. A fielder’s choice put Chavez on first instead of Van Gansen. Chavez stole second and scored on Elliot Stewart’s RBI single through the right side. Third baseman Jimmy Allen’s flare hit the grass in center for a double, but Stewart was easily gunned down at the plate for the third out.
After Notre Dame’s Ryan Bull launched an RBI triple, Cal Poly answered back with more runs in the sixth. Torres led off the assault by sending the first pitch he saw over the field fence.
An opposite-field single by Mundell followed by Armendariz’s double set the stage for Tim Wise, who hit a weak liner to short.
Armendariz ran to third, where Mundell stood, unsure if the ball would be caught. When Notre Dame shortstop Lane Richards fielded it off one hop, he saw he would be unable to throw out Armendariz, not noticing he could have had Mundell at the plate.
The score was cut to 6-4 before Van Gansen popped a double into right to make it a one-run ballgame. The Mustangs’ lack of clutch hitting then continued, as they failed to push the tying run across despite having two men in scoring position with one out.
“We just shot ourselves in the foot,” head coach Larry Lee said. “There were a number of innings where we could have tacked on a big total, and we needed to put up more runs in those situations.”
Neither team scored again for the rest of the game, despite the Mustangs putting a man on third in the eighth inning.
“After that first game that we won from them, I thought that we were easily the better team, and that we were going to come out and steamroll them the next couple days,” Torres said.