SACRAMENTO — Senior Gunner Gouldsmith extended his hitting streak to 17 consecutive games and the Sacramento State bullpen was stellar with eight innings of one-run baseball, but visiting Abilene Christian scored all the runs it would need in the first three innings en route to a 3-0 victory in the Western Athletic Conference series finale with the Hornets on Sunday at John Smith Field.
Sacramento State fell to 10-14 overall and 4-5 in WAC play with the defeat, while the Wildcats improved to 15-10 overall and 6-3 in league.
Gouldsmith's streak-extending hit came with one out in the sixth as he launched a ball that bounced off the base of the wall for an easy double. The 17 straight games with a hit breaks a tie with six other streaks for sole possession of ninth on the all-time chart, standing one game back of 18-game streaks by Blake Crosby in 2009 and Derek Brown in 1994 for seventh.
In the process, Gouldsmith has raised his average nearly 100 points to a team-high .317 on the year. During his run, he has hit .356 (26-for-73) with four doubles, scoring 12 runs, and driving in 12 more.
A single, a pair of walks, and a hit batter led to Abilene Christian's first run in the top of the field and the Wildcats followed with sacrifice fly to make it 2-0. ACU added a third run in the third, but that was just about all the Wildcats could muster against a stingy Hornet bullpen as Cooper Rons, Max Pettey, Xavier Richards, and Kade Brown combined to scatter that lone run on five hits while striking out 13 hitters without a walk over the final eight innings.
Brown led the quartet with a career-high six strikeouts, Rons added four more over his two innings of work, while Pettey struck out three in 1.1 scoreless innings.
Abilene Christian's Brett Lanman (4-1) earned the win, going seven innings while allowing only two hits and striking out seven. Cade McGarrh picked up his third save of the year with two shutout innings, striking out two. Andrew Overland (0-2) took the loss for the Hornets.
Sacramento State is on the road for the next four, traveling to UC Davis on Tuesday (March 26) for a 2:30 start, before opening a three-game WAC series at Grand Canyon on March 28-30.
