Box Score
SAN FRANCISCO - The Cal Poly Pomona baseball team staged a two-run rally in the ninth inning for a 6-5 comeback victory at San Francisco State Friday.
Despite the Broncos committing four errors on the day, the CPP offense made up for those defensive miscues with 11 hits on the afternoon. The key knock came from freshman
Humberto Tovalin, who lined a one-out single down the rightfield line to score the tying and go-ahead runs in the ninth.
"My job with a runner at third and one out is to get a ground ball or to put a fly ball deep in the outfield," Tovalin said. "I just tried to stay focused on the pitcher's delivery and the ball as it came in. I made solid contact and that gave me a chance."
The Broncos improve to 21-11 overall and 14-11 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, while the Gators fall to 11-21 overall and 6-19 through CCAA play. The result in San Francisco paired with UC San Diego's loss to Sonoma State Friday puts CPP in a tie for fourth place in the conference standings with the Tritons of UCSD.
Friday's contest featured a pitching matchup between the Broncos'
Erick Ruvalcaba and SFSU's Brandon Petrangelo, with both hurlers throwing as good as advertised through the early going. The CPP attack got something going in the third though, as
Tyson Edwards opened the inning with a double.
Ryan Goodman came through with a two-out triple and a
Mike Santora single capped off the two-run rally.
The Broncos hurt themselves defensively in the fifth and sixth inning, as the Gators got two scores in each of those frames while CPP posted three of its errors in that span. It all led to a high pitch count for Ruvalcaba, who exited after 5.1 innings with two earned runs to his name and SFSU holding a 4-2 advantage.
Doubles from
Jenzen Torres and
Stephen Gonzalez cut the Gators' edge to 4-3 in the top of the seventh, but the hosts rallied for a run in the bottom half of that inning to push the score to 5-3. Once again though the Broncos kept fighting and they managed to manufacture a run in the top of the eighth to bring the tally to 5-4.
Regarding the SFSU work on the mound, Petrangelo finished with eight innings while walking just one batter and striking out eight in 116 pitches thrown. The Gators' coaching staff went with Kevin Dultz for the save opportunity in the top of the ninth but it all unraveled for SFSU.
Chris Miller opened up the inning with a single to leftfield and Edwards followed with a single down the rightfield line. A wild pitch brought both runners into scoring position before Gonzalez struck out. That brought up Tovalin, who delivered the clutch single to bring the Broncos in front, 6-5.
Despite allowing a runner to reach third in the bottom of the ninth inning,
Michael Parker closed the door for CPP and earned the victory with two shutout innings. Parker allowed one hit and one base on balls.
All of the spots in the Broncos' lineup produced at least one hit. Santora and Edwards were the two CPP players with multi-hit games, tallying two hits apiece. Santora raised his hit streak to 11 games while Whitman upped his to 12 contests.
The two squads will return to action Saturday for a doubleheader starting at 11 a.m.
