SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Santa Clara University baseball team kept setting the table Saturday, and this time it finished the job, erasing an early deficit and beating Saint Mary's, 6-5, in game two of the teams' West Coast Conference series at Stephen Schott Stadium.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• Santa Clara (20-19, 7-7 WCC) engineered its 11th come-from-behind victory of the year after Saint Mary's (25-15, 10-4 WCC) had staked itself to another first-inning lead. Brian Duroff hit a two-out, three-run home run on the first pitch he saw to put the Gaels ahead, 3-0, before Santa Clara had even batted.
   
• But the Broncos answered with their own power punch in the bottom half. JonJon Berring led off the bottom of the first with his seventh home run of the year, a solo shot over the right field wall on a full count. The next four Broncos all followed with base hits, including an RBI single from Efrain Manzo that made it 3-2. Malcolm Williams tied the game with a sacrifice fly, bringing home Robert Hipwell to put the score at 3-3.
   
• And then after all that action in the first, both teams' bats went quiet and pitching took over. Blake Hammond (2-3) entered in the third for Santa Clara and had a career performance to earn the victory. He matched his career high with nine strikeouts in a career-long-matching six innings pitched. He only allowed one run, and that run came in on a home run the next Broncos reliever allowed. After allowing three runs on five hits in the first, Saint Mary's starter Connor Linchey only surrendered four more hits with four strikeouts in four subsequent shutout innings.
   
• The Broncos gave Hammond the lead in the bottom of the sixth after a leadoff walk to Ben Steck got the go-ahead rally started. Back-to-back, high-flying pop-ups into right field caused mayhem for the Saint Mary's defense, and when no one could track down the balls, Jordan Lewis ended up with a double and Ben Cleary an RBI single, making it 4-3. Berring tacked on an insurance run with an RBI single, making it 5-3.
   
• The insurance run the Broncos got in the bottom of the eighth was the most important one of them all, and it ended up being the game-winning run. Santa Clara strung together three consecutive two-out singles, the last one from Hipwell to score Berring and make it 6-3. The Broncos needed it, because Saint Mary's got another multi-run homer in the top of the ninth, this time a two-run shot off the bat of Dalton Mashore, making it 6-5.
   
• That allowed Christian Almanza – who had three solo homers in Friday's opener – one last at-bat. Santa Clara closer Max Bayles kept Almanza in the park, but he still doubled into the right field corner, putting the tying run on second. But Ryan Pierce popped up to third base on the very first pitch, ending the game.

NOTABLE NUMBERS

• 3: Hipwell had three more hits Saturday and now has 10 in the five games he's played since making his season debut on Saturday at USC. Hipwell has reached base 15 times in five games since returning.
• 17: Santa Clara matched its season high for hits in a game with 17. Six different Broncos had multi-hit games, including every hitter at No. 1 through 5 in the batting order. SCU's top five in the lineup went a combined 13 for 22 (.591) with four RBIs, four runs scored and two extra-base hits.
• 20: Santa Clara's 20th win of the season on Saturday gave it three consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time in eight years. The last time the Broncos won at least 20 games three years in a row was 2014 (26), 2015 (26) and 2016 (23).

NEXT UP

• The rubber game of the series is scheduled for noon on Sunday. Fans can purchase tickets and find all live coverage links on SantaClaraBroncos.com.