SANTA CLARA, Calif. — There they go again.
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The Santa Clara University baseball team engineered its 12th come-from-behind win of the year Sunday, its second in a row and its fourth victory of 2024 scoring in the ninth inning or later, as a two-out, pinch-hit RBI single in the bottom of the ninth from redshirt freshman
Kai Cunningham sent the Broncos to an 8-7 walk-off win and a West Coast Conference series triumph over Saint Mary's at Stephen Schott Stadium.
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HOW IT HAPPENED
- Cunningham only needed to see two pitches to send everyone home. After taking a pitch outside for a 1-0 count, he laced a ground ball towards the gap on the right side of the infield. Saint Mary's first baseman Christian Almanza dove to his right and got a glove on the ball, but it deflected away and trickled into short right field, allowing Michael O'Hara to score the winning run all the way from second. O'Hara's one-out single followed by Ben Steck's walk put the winning run in scoring position.
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- Cunningham's walk-off hit capped what was already a back-and-forth game, and what had been a crazy final 2 1/2 innings. Both teams scored runs in each of the last five half-innings from the bottom of the seventh on. Two Santa Clara home runs in the seventh broke a 3-3 tie and put the Broncos up, 6-3, with only six more outs to get for the win.
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- Saint Mary's (25-16, 10-5 WCC) answered with two runs of its own in the top of the eighth after each of its first three batters singled on ground balls, pulling to within 6-5. Santa Clara (21-19, 8-7 WCC) added an insurance run in the bottom half thanks to a two-out RBI single from Coleman Brigman that tacked on an unearned run and made it 7-5.
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- But Saint Mary's answered again in the top of the ninth. This time the Gaels loaded the bases with no outs, chasing two different SCU relievers. Nico Stanley (1-0) entered for Santa Clara and got two outs, but they were both sacrifice flies, as Saint Mary's tied the game at 7-7. He'd get a third flyout to strand the go-ahead run at second and send the Broncos to the ninth with a chance to win it.
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- Saint Mary's continued to bust out the power bats in Sunday's finale, hitting three more home runs to give it nine on the weekend. Coleman Schmidt's two-out solo homer in the second inning put the Gaels up, 1-0. The Gaels hit back-to-back solo shots in the sixth, with Almanza hitting his fourth home run of the series and Ryan Pierce following him to tie the game at 3-3.
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- Payton Lambert added his own fireworks to the party Sunday, hitting his first career home run over the left-center field wall to give the Broncos an insurance run at 3-1. It was a three-run, go-ahead fourth inning for Santa Clara after O'Hara led off the inning with a walk. An SMC error put runners on the corners with one out. That's when the Broncos executed a double steal to tie the game at 1-1. A wild pitch gave SCU the 2-1 lead, and Lambert's bomb tacked on.
NOTABLE NUMBERS
- 1: There were a number of significant "1s" on Sunday – Stanley earned his first win of the year and first since 2022 … Lambert hit his first career home run … and freshman starter Jace Gillmore threw one scoreless inning with one strikeout to open the game.
- 2: Cunningham had two pinch-hit, go-ahead base hits during the week. His other came Tuesday against Stanford when his first-pitch single in the fourth cleared the bases in an eventual 4-2 Broncos win.
NEXT UP
- Santa Clara next hits the road for a four-game road trip that starts Tuesday up El Camino Real at Stanford. WCC play continues with a three-game series at first-place San Diego starting Friday. Fans can find all live coverage links on SantaClaraBroncos.com.
