Baseball preps for week ahead

Staff Reports
The Collegian

The Fresno State baseball team takes on San Francisco this week in what was expected to be a two-game homestand.

The midweek games were to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Tuesday’s game was rained out. No make up date has been scheduled.

The midweek sequence of three games on Tuesday and Wednesday will give the team its first scheduled weekend break of the season before embarking on a seven-game series next week.
The Bulldogs won their first encounter with the San Francisco Dons last week, 4-3.

Fresno State relied on its starting pitchers to lead it to victory as Doug Fister gave up three runs but proceeded to allow only two more hits afterwards and netted a career-high 10 strikeouts.

Steve Susdorf hit his sixth home run to give the Bulldogs the lead and eventually the win.

The Bulldogs also took on the Portland Pilots last week, sweeping the squad in three games. Fresno State outscored the Pilots 25-7 in the course of the series, which also featured the team’s first rainout and doubleheader of the season.

The team won both Saturday games following a first-day rainout, with starters Andy Underwood and Eddie Romero pitching all but three innings on the day.

As a team, the Bulldogs batted a combined .323 over the series and doubled the Pilots’ hit total 32-16.
Kent Sakamoto went four for five in the first game, scoring two runs.

This year’s seven-team Pepsi/Johnny Quik tournament begins March 13 and will pit the Bulldogs against six other teams in a round-robin format.

Fresno State will play at 7 p.m. all six days of the tournament beginning with Miami, Ohio on Monday and ending with Lafayette on Saturday.

The tournament underwent some last minute changes due to the withdrawal of Savannah State. Instead of 24 total games, the teams will only play 21, reserving a time slot for rained-out or delayed games to be made up in the morning.

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