SAN FRANCISCO—At least 200 fans watched the San Francisco Dons defeat BYU’s baseball team 5-2 at spacious 41,915-seat AT&T Park, home of the Major League San Francisco Giants.

BYU (8-17 overall and 1-5 in the West Coast Conference) built a 2-0 lead in the first inning but couldn’t produce after that point even with ace Kolton Mahoney on the mound.

“As good as we played yesterday, it’s a 180 turn today,” BYU coach Mike Littlewood said. “We handed this game to them on a silver platter. We started swinging at balls up around our shoulders. We were pressing for stuff out of the zone. Every one of our mistakes led to runs. We did what we wanted to do pitching-wise, but we just didn’t make plays.”

San Francisco (11-10, 2-4) capitalized on BYU miscues to take a 3-2 lead in the fourth when preseason All-American Bradley Zimmer led off with the first of his two singles in the game and the first of his two steals and two runs scored.

The Cougars stranded pairs of runners in the fourth, sixth and eighth innings.

In the eighth, BYU mounted its strongest effort since the first inning. Eric Urry led off with a walk and Brock Whitney singled with no outs, forcing a Don pitching change. That change resulted in three consecutive outs, the first two being strikeouts.

BYU returns to play at Utah on Tuesday at 7 p.m., at Smith Ballpark in game two of four in the Deseret First Duel.

Both BYU and San Francisco’s baseball teams are hoping to break into the winning column, but each has a non-league game before their three-game series starts on Thursday.

The Cougars (7-14) and USF (8-9) are both 0-3 after the first week of play in the West Coast Conference. Fresno State brings a 13-7 record into this week, hosting California before its game with BYU on Wednesday evening.

“As we move into our second week of conference play I just want our guys to take the field with the same confidence and passion we had against Utah and Seattle,” BYU coach Mike Littlewood said.  “San Francisco is a quality team that we will have to beat in order to challenge for one of the four conference tournament spots.”

Michael Springer (0-1, 13.97 earned run average) will be BYU’s starting pitcher on Wednesday night at Fresno State. Teammates Desmond Poulson (3-2, 3.71), Jeff Barker (1-3, 4.86) and Kolton Mahoney (2-3, 4.75) start in that order at San Francisco.

BYU ran into a buzz saw last weekend hosting defending champion San Diego who vaulted back into the nation’s top 25 rankings at No. 17 (Collegiate Baseball), No. 24 (Baseball America) and No. 25 (NCBWA and Perfect Game).

Injured Cougars Hayden Rogers and Dillon Robinson will be making this California trip after being sidelined with a concussion and ankle injuries, respectively, in Texas and Louisiana. Rogers passed concussion protocol and has been cleared to pitch, while Robinson could appear in a designated hitter or pinch-hit role, according to Littlewood.

At San Francisco, BYU will be part of the 9^th Annual Dante Benedetti Classic on Saturday when the two teams precede a high school game at AT&T Ballpark, home of the Major League Giants. This will be BYU’s first game at a Major League ballpark since playing before crowds of 11,699 vs. Notre Dame and 2,804 vs. Washington in 1994 games at the Seattle Kingdome.

KOVO Radio 960 AM will broadcast BYU’s games on Thursday and Friday at 3 p.m. PDT and Saturday’s game at noon.

NOTE: The live video for Fresno State is free, the only live audio at Fresno is paired with the video

For more information, please download the 9-page game notes below: