Cal Poly opens 2016 baseball season with 6-2 victory over Pacific

Kyle Smith admitted he didn’t get much sleep Thursday night.

On the eve of Cal Poly’s season opener against visiting Pacific, the sophomore left-handed pitcher couldn’t help but feel some nervous excitement.

If Smith was at all tired, he certainly didn’t show it in a dominant first outing Friday night that led the Mustangs to a 6-2 victory over the Tigers in a nonconference baseball game inside Baggett Stadium.

The 5-foot-10, 180-pound sophomore threw the second complete game of his career, scattering seven hits and striking out a career-high nine batters against one walk.

Smith struck out the side in the first inning and fanned six of the first seven batters he faced. It took the Torrance native only four innings to match his previous career-high with eight strikeouts, and faced one batter over the minimum during that stretch.

“Had his changeup working,” head coach Larry Lee said. “It’s a difficult pitch to hit and set the tone for us early.”

How it happened:

Designated hitter Jake Mavropoulos staked the Mustangs to a 2-0 lead after the first inning.

True freshmen Alex McKenna and Kyle Marinconz each walked in their first collegiate at-bats, and Mavropoulos roped a two-run double through the gap in left centerfield to pull ahead.

Senior right fielder John Schuknecht drove in another run with infield single that put the Mustangs up 3-0 in the fifth. Pacific climbed back within 3-2 in the seventh, but Cal Poly (1-0) answered with three more runs of its own in a bizarre bottom of the eighth to seal the victory.

“Just locating my changeup, I think, just kept them off balance,” Smith said. “The defense behind my played great tonight, so that was also huge.”

Junior Brett Barbier (2-for-2, two walks) and sophomore Josh George (2-for-4) tallied two hits apiece to pace the Mustangs offensively. Seven players had at least one hit for Cal Poly, which set the school Division I record with six sacrifice bunts.

“Scoring in the first inning kind of gave us some momentum,” Lee said. “We created a lot of opportunities offensively that we didn’t cash in on, but at least we’re creating those opportunities.”

New faces in the crowd:

Having lost seven of nine position starters from last year’s team that went 27-27 overall, Cal Poly started three true freshmen and a junior college transfer on Friday night.

McKenna started in centerfield and hit in the leadoff spot, and Marinconz hit second in the order and started at second base. Fellow true freshman Nick Meyer started behind the plate and made one of the better defensive plays of the night when he picked off a runner first base in the seventh inning.

McKenna, a 6-2, 195-pound Canyon Country native, finished the game 1-for-3 with an RBI, two walks and he scored twice.

“I’m gonna take my swings if I get good pitches,” McKenna said, “but if the guy’s not throwing strikes then I’m going to try to not help him out. I didn’t get a lot of good pitches to hit in the beginning of the game, so I took my walks and it paid off.”

Junior college transfer Michael Sanderson also made his first appearance in a Cal Poly uniform. He started at third base and went 1-for-3 in his Mustang debut.

It also was the first start of Mavropoulos’ Cal Poly career after using a medical redshirt in 2015.

Up next:

Cal Poly and Pacific are scheduled to play a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. Saturday. The Mustangs are expected to start 6-foot-7, 230-pound true freshman Cam Schneider on the mound, and the Tigers will counter with left-hander Ricky Reynoso.

“Cam’s just going to compete, to be honest with you,” McKenna said. “He’s going to come at you with what he has. What I like about him is he’s shown that he stays composed in situations as a freshman.”

In the second game, tentatively set for a 4 p.m. start, Cal Poly junior Slater Lee will match up with Pacific’s Jake Jenkins.

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 10:07 PM with the headline "Cal Poly opens 2016 baseball season with 6-2 victory over Pacific."