After a slow start and a couple errors, the Cal Poly baseball team managed to rally and defeat UC Davis 8-7 in the first game of a three-game series Friday night.
Junior center fielder Alex McKenna, junior shortstop Kyle Marinconz and freshman first baseman Tate Samuelson led the Mustangs’ comeback with two RBIs each. McKenna went 4 for 5 with a triple that led to a run.
“It was just grinding out at-bats, seeing more pitches, taking better swings at pitches in the zone,” McKenna said. “Guys were really using the big part of the field and when you do that you give yourself a better opportunity to be successful. We made that adjustment in the fifth inning on.”
Freshman pitcher Matt Arens recorded his first win of the season after pitching 1 2/3 innings with three strikeouts late in the game.
The Mustangs are now 2 and 5 in conference play and will play 17 of their next 22 games at home.
“We’re a much better team at home,” head coach Larry Lee said. “Our guys feel much more comfortable so it’s great for us. We struggled on the road and we played the majority of our first half of the season on the road. We didn’t handle that very well.”
Cal Poly will face off against UC Davis again Saturday at 6 pm and Sunday at 1 pm.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that freshman pitcher Matt Arens only pitched the eighth inning and recorded three consecutive strikeouts. The article has been corrected with Arens’ accurate statistics from the game.