SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.\u00a0— Long Beach State could not recover from an early deficit Friday night as Cal Poly claimed a 6-2 victory to clinch the Big West series at Baggett Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs struck first in the opening inning after Alejandro Garza singled to left field and came around to score on Dylan Kordic’s RBI double into left center. Ryan Tayman followed with a single through the middle to plate Kordic and put Cal Poly ahead 2-0.<\/p>\n
The Dirtbags answered in the second without recording an earned run. Dylan Lina<\/a> reached on a throwing error before Murchael Turner<\/a> advanced into scoring position on a fielder’s choice. After Conner Stewart<\/a> was hit by a pitch, Ty Borgogno<\/a> lined a single through the right side to score Turner and trim the deficit to 2-1.<\/p>\n Cal Poly responded again in the bottom half of the inning. Gavin Spiridonoff opened the frame with a single before Nate Castellon added a hit through the right side to place runners at the corners. Garza later brought home Dante Vachini on a fielder’s choice to extend the lead to 3-1.<\/p>\n The Mustangs broke the game open in the third. Tayman singled to left before Casey Murray Jr. ripped an RBI triple down the left field line. After Spiridonoff reached on a bunt fielder’s choice, Cam Hoiland doubled down the line to score another run, and Vachini followed with an RBI single through the right side to give Cal Poly a 6-1 advantage.<\/p>\n Long Beach State threatened in the fourth after Turner and Justin Roulston<\/a> were both hit by pitches and Borgogno worked a bases-loaded walk opportunity, but the Dirtbags left three runners stranded after back-to-back strikeouts ended the inning.<\/p>\n Freshman Jaxon Baker<\/a> settled the game down in relief for Long Beach State. After replacing Luke Howe<\/a> in the fourth inning, Baker held the Mustangs scoreless across four innings while striking out three.<\/p>\n The Dirtbags picked up their final run in the sixth when Stewart launched his second home run of the season, second in the series, over the left-field wall to cut the deficit to 6-2.<\/p>\n Long Beach State finished with three hits on the night. Borgogno delivered an RBI single, Lina added a double, and Stewart added a solo homer. Howe struck out two over three innings in the start before Baker’s strong relief outing kept the Dirtbags within striking distance picking up five strikeouts, three hits, and no runs scored.<\/p>\n Cal Poly starter Carson Turnquist earned the win after allowing two runs over six innings with nine strikeouts.<\/p>\n Long Beach State and Cal Poly will conclude the regular season and series Saturday at 1 p.m. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.\u00a0— Long Beach State could not recover from an early deficit Friday night as Cal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-332247","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\/332247","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=332247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}