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POMONA, Calif. - San Francisco State got a strong start from Mickey Radanovich and scored four runs in the fifth to knock No. 3 seed Cal Poly Pomona out of the 2024 CCAA Baseball Tournament and advance to Saturday's championship game.
 
The Gators waited around all day to find out who they would be playing, and when they got their opportunity, they capitalized.
 
Radanovich established himself in the strike zone early and held CPP without a hit in the first four innings. With two outs in the fifth, the Broncos had back-to-back hits, and coach Tony Schifano went to his bullpen for Ethan Remmers. He walked the first batter he faced but then struck out the leadoff batter on three pitches to end the threat.
 
SF State used that momentum and went on to score four runs with two outs in the bottom of the fifth to extend its lead to 5-0. Armando Murillo, Jacob French, and Daniel Santos all singled to load the bases. Justin Johnson then delivered a two-run single. It was his CCAA-leading 71st run batted in of the season, and it tied him for the San Francisco State single-season record. Derek LaFerriere then cleared the bases with a double to extend the lead to 5-0.
 
Cal Poly Pomona got one back in the sixth on a solo home run by Jack Sanders. It scored three more in the seventh, as Johnny Pappas and Marco Malerba had run-scoring hits to cut the deficit to one (5-4).
 
Coach Schifano went to his game 1 starter, David Eichhorn, out of the pen to get the final six out in this one-run game. He gave up a single to the first batter he faced to put up a zero in the eighth, and he did the same in the ninth to earn his first save of the season.
 
Radanovich and Eichhorn combined to give SF State 6.2 scoreless innings with just four hits and one walk. Remmers earned the win to improve to 2-0.
 
French and Johnson each collected three hits and scored a run. The top five batters for SF State collected all 10 hits and scored all five runs.  
 
San Francisco State will advance to the CCAA Tournament Championship game for the first time in program history. The Gators will face Cal State Monterey Bay in the title game at 2 p.m. SFSU will have to defeat CSUMB twice on Saturday because the Otters have still not taken a loss in the tournament. Follow all the action live on the CCAA Network at CCAAnetwork.com.