Merced College’s season on brink after San Mateo rout

The Merced College baseball team was always going to have to win twice in San Mateo.

The 12th-seeded Blue Devils are just going to have to do it the hard way now.

No. 5 San Mateo flexed some offensive muscle Friday, pounding 15 hits in a 12-3 rout of the Blue Devils in Game 1 of a best-of-three NorCal Regional series.

Game 2 is set for 11 a.m. Saturday. Merced will try to force a Game 3 to follow, sending freshman Ryan Sanchez to the mound.

The Blue Devils (23-14) will definitely need a better afternoon from their pitchers, as starter Noah Gapp and relievers Jonathan Townsend and Jared Reyna struggled in Game 1.

Gapp flirted with trouble from the onset, as San Mateo (26-11) loaded the bases in each of the first two innings but had to settle for two sacrifice flies.

Merced answered in the third as Adam Nascimento got the Devils on the board with a two-out double, and Dalton Beatty provided some two-out magic with a run-scoring single in the fourth.

The Devils didn’t hit poorly against Bulldogs ace Sam Hellinger (8-0), producing eight hits, but most of the damage seemed to come with two outs.

San Mateo got to Gapp in the bottom of the fourth, breaking the game open with six runs. Ryan Krainz delivered the big blow with a three-run triple.

Devin Mahoney put away the game with a three-run homer in the eighth.

This story was originally published May 1, 2015 at 11:08 PM with the headline "Merced College’s season on brink after San Mateo rout."