The San Diego State baseball team travelled to Fayetteville, Ark. last weekend to challenge No. 16 University of Arkansas for the first four games of an eight-game road trip. Head coach Tony Gwynn didn’t make the trip with the team because of health concerns.
SDSU’s feast-or-famine season continued on the trip, as the Razorbacks defeated the Aztecs in all four games. It’s the fourth series out of five this season that have ended in a sweep.
SDSU won all three games against both University of San Diego and Seton Hall University. It lost all four against Oregon State and Arkansas, and split a two-game series with University of Santa Clara.
Thursday night, the Aztecs lost, despite a complete game pitching performance by Michael Cederoth. Arkansas scored just twice against Cederoth, but a trio of Razorback pitchers held the Aztecs scoreless to record the 2-0 win.
Friday night, the Aztecs lost 4-3 when Arkansas’ Joe Serrano hit a walk-off home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The Aztecs and Razorbacks played a double-header on Saturday, with Arkansas beating SDSU 8-2 in the first game and 4-1 in the second game.
Game of the series
Friday night’s walk-off home run trumps the pitcher’s duel on Thursday for two reasons: walk-off home runs are rare in college baseball, and it was SDSU’s best offensive output of the series.
Sophomore left fielder Matt Muñoz’s first career home run, a two-run shot in the second inning, gave the Aztecs the lead early in the game. Second baseman Tim Zier scored from first on a double by Jake Romanski in the fifth inning.
But the star of the game was Arkansas left fielder Joe Serrano, who came to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning against Aztec reliever Justin Hepner.
Hepner put down Arkansas 1-2-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning, and got the first two outs of the ninth inning on a strikeout and a groundout. But Serrano tagged him for a home run to left field with two outs that gave Arkansas the walk-off victory.
Player of the series
No player from either team had particularly eye-popping numbers. Both Serrano and Arkansas right fielder Tyler Spoon hit home runs in the series. Spoon’s home run in the first game of Saturday’s double-header was his third of the year. Spoon went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBIs in the 8-2 win.
For the Aztecs, Muñoz provided the only real offensive highlight with his two-run home run.
Pitcher of the series
Cederoth fell to 1-2 on the season, but pitched about as well as he could without getting a win on Thursday evening. He pitched a complete game (eight innings) while giving up just three hits, three walks and two runs, while striking out seven.
After giving up both runs in the third inning, Cederoth was perfect for the rest of the game, not allowing a single base runner during the last five innings.
