MORAGA, Calif. - Saint Mary's welcomed the 2024 WCC champs to town Friday afternoon and held them to just five runs through six innings with quality relief pitching from Elliott Joslin and Justin Santiago. The Toreros would finally breakthrough though in the ninth with a four-run inning highlighted by a three-run shot from Rex Watson to ice the game.

The Gaels bullpen was solid again after a great outing Tuesday night in their win over Fresno State but a costly dropped third strikeout to put the leadoff man on in the ninth would lead to a big inning for the Torero hitters. Dylan Delvecchio made his ninth start of the season and departed in the sixth for transfer Elliott Joslin. Joslin allowed just one run over his two innings of work, but the Gaels struggled to get anything going offensively finishing the afternoon with one run off seven hits. 

USD starter Logan Reddemann picked up his second win of the season with a dominant seven-inning performance, allowing just one run off four hits. Eddie Madrigal was 2-for-4 from the dish to lead all Saint Mary's hitters while freshman Makoa Sniffen came off the bench and doubled in his only at-bat, adding to his two hits from Tuesday's win over the Bulldogs. 

HOW IT HAPPENED…

3RD INNING

After going down by three in the first two innings, the Gaels put runners on in the third thanks to a leadoff single from freshman catcher Brett Williams. In just ten games played this season, Williams has made the most of his at-bats with 12 hits and a .444 batting average. 

Williams would move to second after a sacrifice bunt from Tanner Griffith and then Cody Kashimoto would be the man to plate Williams, slapping a double down the left field line for his 11th RBI of the season. Kashimoto had hit a cold patch recently but now has hits in each of his last two games and helped get Saint Mary's on the board. 

B3 | SMC 1 - USD 3

Kashin' in the first run of the day 🤑#GaelsRise pic.twitter.com/8c3Ev19dMY

— Saint Mary's Baseball (@SMC_Baseball) April 11, 2025

The Gaels were poised for a big inning with Kashimoto trading places with Williams and just one out, but Jared Mettam would go down swinging the next at-bat and then Reddemann would get Eddie Madrigal to ground out to first to end the threat. 

9TH INNING

The Saint Mary's pitching staff allowed just two runs from the third to the sixth inning to keep them in the ballgame but San Diego would put things to bed in the top of the ninth with a four-run inning.

Sophomore right hander Justin Santiago made his tenth appearance of the season and looked to start the inning out on a good note but his strikeout pitch would get away from Williams and allow the leadoff man to reach for the Toreros. After a walk and a sac bunt, USD would have runners on second and third with just one out. 

Santiago would walk the next batter to load the bases and then give up a sac fly to center field to score a run and extend the Toreros lead to 7-1. Santiago nearly got out of the jam but Rex Watson would send the 2-1 pitch deep over the right-center wall to put the game on ice, pushing their lead to 10-1. 

Freshman infielder Micah Nicholson would pinch hit for the Gaels with two outs in the bottom half of the ninth and single down the left field line to keep the inning going. Diego Castellanos would follow suit with a lined shot into right field to give some late life for Saint Mary's but power hitter Brian Duroff would strikeout in an eight-pitch battle to end the game. 

Madrigal singled twice as the team's only player with multiple hits on the day, his 13th multi-hit game of the season. Aiden Taurek saw his five-game hitting streak come to an end as he barreled a couple of baseballs but finished 0-for-3. Freshmen Williams, Sniffen and Nicholson all recorded hits as well. Sniffen added to his recent success and doubled with one out in the eighth inning but was stranded on third after Mettam struckout to end the inning. 

Delvecchio took the loss for his second of the season while Reddemann earned his second win and lowered his ERA to 1.74 to lead the conference.   

LOOKING AHEAD

Saint Mary's fell to 15-17 overall and 2-5 in WCC play after their series opening defeat to San Diego, 10-1. Game two of the series is slated for Saturday at 1:00 PM and you can catch all the action live on ESPN+. Tickets can also be bought online at smcgaels.com/tickets. 

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