Published 2012-02-23T00:13:00Z”/>

Sarah Goad

The Wildcat baseball team traveled to San Diego this past weekend to take on the Tritons in a four-game series and returned with a series split.

Chico State was scoring in the first inning Friday as the team put two runs on the board right away, taking advantage of a Triton error.

Junior right-handed pitcher Kagen Hopkins took the mound for the ’Cats in game one of the series and threw eight innings to strike out seven Tritons and allow one earned run and eight hits

Hopkins gave the Wildcats a strong start to the weekend, head coach Dave Taylor said.

The team was expecting to be competitive in the series and avoid giving anything up, Hopkins said.

UC San Diego hit a triple off Hopkins in the third with the runner scoring on a sacrifice fly.

The ’Cats answered in the fourth by scoring another run to extend their lead to 3–1.

Energy was up on both offense and defense, junior outfielder Blake Gibbs said.

The team topped off its scoring in the seventh and added one more run to the board.

Junior right-handed pitcher Mike Botelho pitched the ninth for the ’Cats, striking out three and stranding one on base. The team won 4-1.

Game two of the series, the first in Saturday’s doubleheader, was a much different story.

Chico State did not take care of business, Taylor said.

Sophomore right-handed pitcher Nick Baker started the game for the ’Cats and gave up three runs on three hits with one walk and four strikeouts through three innings.

The ’Cats put six total runs on the board, with contributions from senior shortstop T.J. Yasuhara, junior first baseman Austin Prott and junior infielders Colton Hamill, Jordan Beck and Myles Dempsey.

The score was knotted at six and remained tied in the ninth, sending the game into extra innings.

The Tritons scored on a bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 13th off Chico State’s junior right-handed pitcher Sean Martin to give UC San Diego a 7-6 win in the first game of the doubleheader.

It was disappointing to lose in extra innings, but the loss fueled the team’s fire, Hopkins said.

“The whole time you are close to winning, you play a little more pissed off,” Gibbs said.

Chico State came back in the second game of the day with an offensive explosion.

UC San Diego’s pitching took a beating from the bats of the ’Cats as Chico State scored 15 runs in seven innings.

Nine ’Cats had RBIs, and Chico State took down UC San Diego 15-1 to end the day.

Luke Barker, a freshman right-handed pitcher, started Sunday’s game for the ’Cats.

UC San Diego scored a run in bottom of the third inning, and the Wildcats countered in the top of the fourth with their own run.

The Tritons would score four more runs off Barker, a Chico local, and would hand the ’Cats a 5-1 loss to split the series at two games apiece.

“We just need to play the game a little bit better,” Taylor said. “Our pitching and defense were good enough to win all weekend.”

<strong>Sarah Goad can be reached at</strong>

<em>[email protected]</em>