SACRAMENTO – A gem from starting pitcher
Spencer Bengard put California Baptist University baseball in position to take game one of its Western Athletic Conference series at Sacramento State on Friday.
The Lancers came up just short in a 2-1 loss as the Hornets scored twice in the eighth inning. Bengard threw a career-long 7.2 innings on the mound in his third start of the season. He was charged with two runs on five hits, no walks and a career-high eight strikeouts.
CBU outhit Sacramento State 8-6 and chased Hornets' ace Eli Saul in the sixth innings. The Lancers were led by three hits from
Michael Carpentier and two from
Chad Castillo. California Baptist moves to 25-13 on the year and 11-8 in the WAC West Division. Sac State improves to 22-19, 12-10.
Carpentier and
David Martin extended double-digit hitting streaks on Friday. Carpentier singled to lead off the second inning to give him 12-straight games with a hit. Martin moved his hitting streak to 19 games with a single in the third, which tied for the fifth-longest hitting streak in CBU's modern era.
PLAY-BY-PLAY
Friday played to a scoreless tie through the first five-and-a-half innings. CBU broke through first and got into the Hornets' bullpen with a two-out rally in the sixth. Carpentier got things started with a two-out single, took second on a wild pitch and
Mitchel Simon scored him with a single to left field.
For the second start in a row, Bengard went at least six innings on the mound after he held Long Beach State scoreless through six innings on the road on April 12. He tried 12-straight batters on Friday night, as he put the Hornets down 1-2-3 in the third, fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
Bengard retired the leadoff batter in the eighth before Sac State got a one-out double. The runner moved to third on a groundout from the next batter, but a double and single back-to-back gave the Hornets the 2-1 lead.
UP NEXT
Game two between the Lancers and Hornets is set for a 1 p.m. first pitch on Saturday, April 30. The series finale will be played at noon Sunday, May 1 at John Smith Field. The Lancers will then play a mid-week game at UNLV on Tuesday, May 3, before returning home to host NM State next weekend (May 6-8).
