{"id":196205,"date":"2026-02-27T08:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/196205\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:15:10","slug":"cougars-drop-tight-game-in-ninth-to-byu-in-long-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/196205\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougars Drop Tight Game in Ninth to BYU in Long Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONG BEACH, Calif. (February 26, 2026) \u2013 Washington State allowed a go-ahead three-run home run with two outs in the ninth inning of a 6-4 defeat to BYU at Blair Field in Long Beach Thursday afternoon.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWSU took a 4-3 lead into the ninth and retired the first two hitters before a hit-by-pitch and walk put two runners on for a BYU pinch-hitter who hit a 2-0 pitch out to left field for the lead. WSU brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the inning but a flyout to left ended the Washington State rally.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWSU received seven dominant outings from starter <a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/luke-meyers\/14468\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14468\" target=\"_blank\">Luke Meyers<\/a> who struck three and allowed just one unearned run on four hits. Meyers was perfect until BYU led off the sixth with a bunt single to third base.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/trevor-smith\/14496\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14496\" target=\"_blank\">Trevor Smith<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/gavin-roy\/14472\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14472\" target=\"_blank\">Gavin Roy<\/a> each collected three hits while <a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/dustin-robinson\/14494\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14494\" target=\"_blank\">Dustin Robinson<\/a> had a pair of doubles and two RBI.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nKEY MOMENTS OF THE GAME<br \/>\nWSU jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning as Northrop and Hartman each worked walks to start the inning before Robinson pulled a two-run double just inside the first base bag and down the right field line to score both. Washington State pushed the lead to 4-0 two runs in the fifth after <a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/kyler-northrop\/14469\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14469\" target=\"_blank\">Kyler Northrop&#8217;s<\/a> RBI-sacrifice fly to left field and <a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/max-hartman\/14463\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14463\" target=\"_blank\">Max Hartman<\/a> pulled an RBI-triple into the right field corner.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBYU broke up Meyer&#8217;s perfect game with a leadoff bunt single in the sixth inning and later scored on a sacrifice fly after a WSU throwing error.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nMeyers ran into some trouble in the seventh but used a double play and a groundout to second to strand a pair of runners in the frame.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBYU made it a one-run game after scoring a pair of runs on three hits and a hit-by-pitch in the eighth inning. In the ninth, BYU used a hit-by-pitch and walk to runners on first and second with two outs before a pinch-hitter hit a go-ahead three-run home run to left field,<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nINSIDE THE BOX SCORE<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/trevor-smith\/14496\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14496\" target=\"_blank\">Trevor Smith<\/a> recorded his 1st career 3-hit game and 3rd career multiple-hit game<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/wsucougars.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/max-hartman\/14463\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"14463\" target=\"_blank\">Max Hartman<\/a> recorded his 2nd career triple<br \/>\n3 of WSU&#8217;s last 4 games have been decided in the 9th or 10th innings<br \/>\nWSU is 26-20 all-time against BYU<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nNEXT UP<br \/>\nWSU will play two games in Long Beach tomorrow, BYU at 1:05 p.m. and Long Beach State at 6:05 p.m.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. (February 26, 2026) \u2013 Washington State allowed a go-ahead three-run home run with two outs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-196205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}