Cougars drop seesaw battle at USF, 9-8

SAN FRANCISCO — BYU baseball lost a tough back-and-forth battle, 9-8, to San Francisco on Friday afternoon at Benedetti Diamond.

“We are usually a great defensive team, but we made a couple errors that really hurt us today.” said BYU interim head coach Trent Pratt. “It’s too bad, because we had a lot of good at bats and some big hits. I thought we did a lot of good things offensively.”

BYU (22-18, 7-10 WCC) scored first in the top of the second inning to take a 1-0 lead. Following a Josh Cowden single and a Collin Reuter walk, Ozzie Pratt doubled to right field to score Cowden. 

San Francisco got on the board with three runs in the bottom of the third off four hits, a walk and a lead-off hit batter to take a 3-1 lead. 

The Cougars responded with five runs in the fourth, sending all nine batters to the plate in the inning. Back-to-back walks by Cowden and Reuter, followed by a Pratt single loaded the bases with one out. A ground out to the shortstop by Brock Watkins scored Cowden and a single to center by Mitch McIntyre scored two more. Three-straight singles by Ryan Sepede, Jacob Wilk and Austin Deming scored two more for a 6-3 advantage. 

The Dons waisted no time retaking the lead as four runs off three hits and two BYU errors in the bottom half of the inning gave USF a 7-6 lead. 

After a scoreless fifth inning, BYU tied the game in the sixth. With Pratt on second base, McIntrye singled to left advancing Pratt to third. With one out, Sepede’s sacrifice fly to center brought home the tying run, knotting the game at 7-7. 

After a scoreless seventh, the Cougars scratched out a go-ahead run in the eighth on a Sepede infield single that scored Hayden Leatham, who had reached on a leadoff walk. 

USF retook the lead with two runs in the bottom of the eighth on two hits and two more BYU errors for an 9-8 lead. The Cougars had one final chance in the ninth inning, but Dons’ closer Josh Mollerus got a pop up and two strikeouts for the save. 

BYU scored eight runs on 12 hits with one USF error, while the Dons scored nine runs on 13 hits and four BYU errors. 

Game three of the WCC series is scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m. PDT. The game will be broadcast live on the WCC Network as well as the BYU Radio Network—BYU Radio 107.9 FM, BYU Radio App, BYUCougars.com and the BYU Cougars app.