Nevada baseball falls to Pacific

RENO - Nevada baseball coach Gary Powers hates to lose. He hates giving away games even more.

Powers was fuming after watching his team kick the ball around in the fourth and fifth innings, enabling Pacific to build an early 4-0 lead despite a decent pitching performance by No. 1 starter Tim Schoeninger.

Then, Powers had to watch a questionable ruling by umpire John Aiello lead to two more runs in the eighth. And, he helplessly looked on as his team, with the tying run on third and winning run on second with one out in the ninth, fail to get a game-tying or game-winning hit against UOP reliever Jason Haar, who picked up the save.

It all added up to a 7-6 loss to Pacific in the first game of a three-game series Friday afternoon at Peccole Park before a crowd of 686.

"We put ourselves in a bad situation and made it easy for them," Powers said after watching his team fall to 3-7. "No loss is easy to take when you feel like you gave the game away.

"Tim has pitched four great games and I think we've won one of them. Every game we haven't won we've not played defense on basic routine baseball plays. It's simple to throw a ball 75 feet if your focused and concentrating. Our defense is just pathetic right now."

Powers said lack of depth is really hurting his team right now, and one of those spots is at third base. Dayton's Matt Bowman has been bothered by a bad right elbow, limiting him to designated hitter duties. His replacement, Ryan Foley, has already made six errors this year.

"He (Bowman) is progressing," Powers said. "He's throwing now. It's gone good so far. Holpefully by the Portland series we'll get him back."

It was Foley who contributed negatively in a two-run fifth inning.

Leading 2-0 with no outs, Pacific catcher Joe Oliveira reachd on an infield single. Alex Zanini dropped down a bunt, and Foley threw wildly past first baseman Terry Walsh, allowing Oliveira to get all the way to third. Zanini reached second. Adam Ching's roller was thrown away by catcher Jordan Opdyke, allowing both runners to score. Ching eventually moved round to third on a bunt single by Anthony Jackson, but was stranded as Schoeninger struck out two batters.

"As a starting pitcher, you want to give your team a chance to win whether it's five innings or eight innings," Schoeninger said. "There were good things and bad things. (today). When things were getting out of hand, I tried to keep the young guys going. Those things are going to happen. As a senior, you want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"You want to avoid the big inning. You don't want to let the other team score four or five runs. It's hard to come back from."

Yet Nevada did come back with four sixth-inning runs off starter Luke Massetti.

Bowman singled sharply to left, leading off the inning, moved to second on Shawn Scobee's single to left. Bowman moved to third on Walsh's long fly to center and scored on Bake Krukow's hard shot back up the middle. David Ciarlo followed with a three-run homer to left, tying the game at 4.

"It was a fastball up," said Ciarlo, who had only two homers and 10 RBI all of last season. "I knew I would get a pitch to hit because of what the people in front of me had done."

Nevada had a chance to take the lead in the seventh when reliever Joey Centanni walked two batters. Enter Eric Stolp, who retired Scobee and Walsh to end the inning, setting the stage for some eighth-inning fireworks.

Nevada's Wesley Dorsett, who finished the seventh, ran into trouble in the eighth.

After one out, Jake Ross tripled and scored on Brett Manning's single. Dorsett fanned Oliveira for the second out. Dorsett got ahead of Zanini 1-2, and appeared to have the Tigers' shortstop struck out on a high fastball. Plate umpire Bill Speck went for help, and Aiello ruled no swing. Zanini tripled just inside the line, driving home John Devany, who ran for Manning. Ching followed with a run-scoring double to make it 7-4. Carson's Owen Brolsma came on to get the final out.

Brolsma blanked UOP in the ninth, and Nevada had a chance to get him the win in the bottom of the inning.

Stolp gave up a single to Bryan Joynt and then hit Durrell Williams with a pitch. Stolp exited in favor of lefty Curtis Pasma, who entered the game with an 0.90 ERA. Powers yanked the announced hitter Andy Matthews in favor of Matt Suleski, whose double scored Joynt to make it 7-5. Bowman followed with a sacrifice fly to score Williams to make it 7-6.

Pasma left the game in favor of Haar after starting Scobee off with a ball. Haar went on to walk Scobee on three pitches and Walsh on four wide ones to load the bases. He caught Krukow looking at a 3-2 fastball on the knees and then got Ciarlo on a long fly ball to the warning track in right-centerfield to end the game.

"I think we did make it interesting," Pacific coach Ed Sprague said. "He (Haar) was the only experienced guy we had left. We tried to extend (Eric) Stolp. (Curftis) Pasma has been bothered by a rib cage. Haar picked us up. He's been a starter. He was able to make the pitches when he needed to."

Notes: The teams play again today at 1 with Ryan Rodriguez (1-2) of Nevada opposing Jake Wild of UOP... Dan Eastham struck out in his only at-bat, snapping his four-game hitting streak. Both Joynt and Williams have three-game hit streaks ... Powers is still unsure of his Sunday starter, though it appears that it might be Steve Taylor ... Krukow's single in the sixth was his second run-scoring, pinch-hit single of the season ... Scobee and Joynt each finished with two hits.