SAN MARCOS, Calif. – The #17-ranked Colorado School of Mines Baseball team took its first loss of the 2022 season on Sunday afternoon after Cal State San Marcos earned the walk-off win at The CSUSM Baseball Field.
 
Alex Bumpus and Danny McDermott accounted for a majority of the Orediggers' offense. Bumpus finished 2-for-4 at the plate with one run. McDermott turned in a 1-for-3 resume including one double and one run. Keene Tanaka notched Mines' lone RBI of the day. Luke Folsom and Brady Veltien also collected one hit apiece. Folsom served as the starting pitcher as well, but didn't factor in the decision despite allowing just one run on two hits over the course of 3.1 innings with three strikeouts. Marcus Lee (0-1) wore the loss after surrendering one unearned run on one hit in 1.0 inning out of the bullpen. Zachary Kriethe also collected five strikeouts in 2.1 innings of relief. Adam Houghtaling, Ben Schoneman and Rodney Gregg all provided shutout appearances on the mound as well.
 
Mines (11-1) ran up against the pitching ace from Cal State San Marcos (3-5) Garrett Apker. He tossed a complete-game victory behind two runs on five hits with 13 strikeouts to offset three walks. The Oredigger pitching staff racked up 10 strikeouts of its own, but walked five as the defense also committed two errors. Final batting averages for both teams came in at .166 for Mines and .206 for CSUSM. There were a total of three hits for extra bases in the game as the Orediggers notched one double and the Cougars smacked two.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Prior to Sunday, Mines and Cal State San Marcos had combined to score 48 runs on 67 hits through three games in the four-game set. That made the averages 16 total runs and just over 22 hits per game, but the finale would not go that way as Folsom carried the Orediggers' no-hit bid into the third inning and CSUSM kept the visitors hitless into the fourth frame. The Cougars also notched their second hit of the game in the bottom of the fourth and followed up with a walk and double steal to set the table for one run on a sacrifice bunt.
 
Offense remained relatively scarce in the second half of the game as well until back-to-back doubles allowed another run for the home team in the bottom of the sixth inning. That brought Mines into the eighth frame facing a 2-0 deficit with six outs to work with. The Orediggers used three of those outs to get one run thanks to McDermott's double followed by Tanaka's RBI. Then, Gregg and Lee took care of business in the bottom half. With three outs remaining, Bumpus led off the top of the ninth with a single up the middle. Moeck waited out a one-out walk to put runners on first and second. Andrews strode to the plate with two outs and worked a 3-1 count before a wild pitch allowed Bumpus to score from second and tie the game at 2-2. However, the comeback was not meant to be with Cal State San Marcos putting two on base and jumping on a Mines one-out error to get the walk-off win.
 
NOTABLES
- Mines leaves California touting a 3-1 record in the all-time series against Cal State San Marcos.
- The Orediggers' 11-1 start is their best since 2002 when they opened 13-1.
- After 12 games, Mines' pitchers boast a staff ERA of 3.44 with 97 total strikeouts in 99.1 innings.
- During the same span listed above, Oredigger hitters tout a .303 combined batting average while slugging .506 thanks to 27 doubles, three triples and 17 home runs.
- Moeck's walk in the top of the ninth inning on Sunday extended his streak of reaching base safely to 12 games while Folsom owns a 10-game streak of reaching base safely.
- Despite Sunday's loss, Mines has already produced quite the turnaround from the 2021 season when it started the season 1-11 compared to 11-1 this year.
- Coach Bales holds an overall record of 73-42 in his fourth season as the head coach at Mines.
 
WHAT'S NEXT
The Orediggers have next weekend off before opening RMAC play at MSU Denver March 4-6. Live stats and free video on the RMAC Network will be offered at www.minesathletics.com.
 
Fans can follow Mines baseball on Twitter at @OrediggersBSB. They can also follow all of Mines Athletics on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @MinesAthletics, and online at www.minesathletics.com.