SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The late-inning magic was on again Friday night for the Santa Clara University baseball team, as it broke through with 10 runs from the sixth inning on, beating UC Davis in the first game of a three-game non-conference series, 10-2, at Stephen Schott Stadium.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Santa Clara (8-4) exploded for 10 runs across just the sixth, seventh and eighth innings after it had been shutout for the first five. Home runs by Coleman Brigman and Ben Steck, as well as a two-run triple from Efrain Manzo, helped power the late-game offense.
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- Friday may prove to be the breakout game that Brigman has been waiting for. It was Brigman who finally broke through a pitchers' duel in the sixth to get the Broncos' offense rolling, hitting his first home run of the season with a no-doubter over the left-field wall to make it 1-0 Santa Clara.
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- It's been a relatively slow start to 2024 for Brigman. He carried with him into the weekend a .174 batting average with no extra-base hits and a team-high 17 strikeouts. But the coaching staff has stuck with him through the first 3 1/2 weeks, batting him second in the lineup every day. That patience and confidence finally paid off Friday, as he finished with a 3-for-5 showing at the plate with two extra-base, a game-high three RBIs and a stolen base.
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- UC Davis' Bryan Green (0-1) and Santa Clara's Blake Hammond locked themselves in a pitchers' duel through the game's first five innings. Green had struck out eight while scattering three hits and only issuing one walk through five shutout frames against the Broncos. Hammond matched him with five scoreless innings of work, striking out two and scattering four hits.
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- Hammond escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth that would've altered the course of the game. Three of the Aggies' first four batters reached safely to clog the base paths with only one out. E Felix worked a full count, and with nowhere to put him, Hammond got a clutch swinging strikeout. He then got Brayden Wooldridge to ground out up the middle on the next pitch and avoid any damage.
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- UC Davis got two runs of its own in the top of the seventh to pull back within one of the Broncos, but Santa Clara got both of them back in the bottom half, then tacked on five insurance runs in the eighth to run away with what began as a tightly contested series opener.
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- Cole Kitchen (1-0) picked up where Hammond left off, closing out the game with four innings of work to earn his first win of the season. He slammed the door on the Aggies in the ninth, striking out three consecutive batters after walking the leadoff batter to seal the win.
NOTABLE NUMBERS
- 8: Eight of Santa Clara's 10 runs were scored with two outs. The Broncos have 52 RBIs as a team with two outs this season, led by Manzo's 12. He had two more on Friday when his two-out triple in the seventh brought in two runs and made it 5-2.
- 14: JonJon Berring extended his active reached base streak to 14 games with two singles on the night. His streak stretches back to last season during the Fayetteville Regional when he reached base in each of the Broncos' last two games of the year.
- 17: It took until his final at-bat of the night, but Malcolm Williams shot a seeing-eye single through the left side of the infield to extend his active hitting streak to 17 games. The streak dates to last season when he got a hit on the second day of the West Coast Conference Tournament.
NEXT UP
The series continues Saturday with a 1 p.m. scheduled first pitch. Fans can purchase tickets and find all live coverage links on SantaClaraBroncos.com.
