BYU baseball takes two from top WAC team

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    By CLAIRISSA PETT

    There’s something to be said for home-field advantage.

    It can transform the perennial underdog into a dominating force, as evidenced by the BYU baseball team, which pulled out victories in two of three games against San Jose State Friday and Saturday at Cougar Field.

    The Cougars — who were picked to finish ninth out of 11 teams in WAC preseason polls — raised some critic’s eyebrows when they defeated the first-place Spartans 14-9 and 8-5 before falling in a close 4-3 contest in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader.

    “It’s nice to beat the tar out of the people who didn’t think we could play,” BYU coach Gary Pullins said. “We’re getting better in every outing and in every series.”

    San Jose State (16-11, 7-2) embarked on its first road trip of the season with an undefeated 6-0 record against WAC teams and the lowest team ERA in the conference. But that didn’t last long, as BYU rocked the Spartans’ top two pitchers for 22 runs in its two victories.

    In Friday’s game, the Spartans were up 3-0 until the Cougars added four runs of their own in the third inning. After a stand-up double from BYU’s Gary Johnson, San Jose State pitcher Steve Murphy logged eight straight balls to load the bases with one out. DH Michael Davies tied the game at 3-3 with a sacrifice fly that scored Ryan Pond.

    After that, BYU never trailed.

    Pond finished the day 2-for-2 with six RBIs after he was walked in his first three at bats. The Spartans were forced to pitch to him in the sixth and seventh innings, which resulted in two towering three-run home runs.

    “It was frustrating at first,” Pond said. “The walks came, but the patience paid off in the end and I got my pitches to hit.”

    Freshman pitcher Curtis Rodriguez (3-2) recorded the win for BYU with a solid outing in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader.

    Rodriguez worked a shutout into the fourth inning and held San Jose State to just one hit before the Spartans cut a 6-0 deficit to 6-5 with a five-run fifth.

    Johnson was responsible for four of BYU’s runs, belting a three-run home run in the first inning and adding a sacrifice fly in the second.

    “They were throwing me away for some reason,” Johnson said. “The ball just got up in the light air and sailed into the trees.”

    BYU added insurance runs with an RBI-triple from Greene in the bottom of the fifth followed by an RBI-double by senior Ryan Freeman.

    Strong gusting winds became a factor in the latter half of Saturday’s doubleheader — as did San Jose State pitcher Vince LaCorte and his 0.84 ERA. The wind forced both teams to play what Pullins called “small ball”, which essentially was a ground game of squeeze plays and hit-and-runs.

    “We weren’t anticipating playing that kind of game here,” Pullins said. “(San Jose State) won the game with small ball. For us, it was too little, too late.”

    LaCorte (5-1) held the Cougars to just four hits through seven innings to maintain a shutout to that point. BYU started to come back in the eighth inning, scoring two runs, but botched a hit-and-run play that had Johnson caught stealing third and David Jensen grounding out to the pitcher for the third out.

    “The wind turned it into a game where we had to execute and put the ball on the ground,” Johnson said. “I think we hit the ball in the air too much.”

    With the three-game series, BYU moved its record to 12-14 overall and 7-5 in the conference.

    Cougar Notes: BYU is 22-1 in home openers since Pullins started coaching in 1977 and are 40-5 since 1954. The Cougars’ only opening day loss under Pullins was against Wyoming three years ago.

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