The BYU baseball team beat the University of San Francisco Friday and Saturday to win the weekend series and keep pace in the conference standings.
With Saturday’s win, the Cougars (26-19, 12-9 WCC) secured their hold on fourth place in the conference and the last spot in the WCC tournament.
The Cougars won Friday night’s game 10-9 over the Dons on a walk-off home run by Kelton Caldwell.
“He (Logan West) fooled me with the first change up but he went back to it and that’s the one I hit out,” Caldwell said.
The game was back and forth from the start. Jacob Hanneman tripled to the left-center field gap and scored on Brennon Anderson’s sacrifice giving the Cougars a 1-0 lead. The Dons scored in the second and third to take a 2-1 lead.
Anderson hit a solo home run to tie it at 2 in the fourth. BYU tacked on two more runs in the frame on back-to-back doubles by Jaycob Brugman and Brock Whitney followed by an RBI single by Caldwell, giving them a 4-2 lead.
USF scored four runs in the fifth to regain the lead, highlighted by a two-run single by Mitchell Rowan. The Dons scored one more in the sixth, giving them a 7-4 lead. The Cougars got one run back in the bottom half when Adam Law was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, scoring Dakota Hernandez.
With two outs in the seventh, BYU seized a 9-7 lead on Hernandez’s RBI single, and a three-run home run by Hanneman.
USF tied the game at 9-9 in the ninth with two outs when pinch-hitter Reyn Nagamine hit a base hit to center which Hanneman misplayed, allowing both runners on base to score. Caldwell’s home run followed, giving the Cougars the victory.
In Saturday’s deciding game, BYU scored four runs in the bottom of the eighth and took the series with a 6-4 victory.
“We have so much heart, so much character and so much fight that when we get down three or four runs, it’s not a big deal to us,” head coach Mike Littlewood said.
With the Cougars trailing 4-2, Hayden Nielsen hit an RBI single to score Caldwell, followed by Anderson’s run-scoring single to score Nielson and tie the game. Adam Law provided the go ahead runs with a two-run triple.
Law went 5-for-5 on the day to lead the Cougar offense. Ryan Matranga hit a two-run home run to lead the Dons.
Prior to Saturday’s game, BYU retired the jerseys of two former head coaches, Garry Pullins (No. 1) and Glen Tuckett (No. 20). Both are in the College Baseball Hall of Fame.
BYU will host Utah on Tuesday at 6 p.m. MDT in the deciding game of this year’s Deseret Duel.
