In a matchup against a top 25 ranked team to open its 2025 season, the San Diego Toreros baseball team fell Friday against the No. 23 TCU Horned Frogs 5-4 in 10 innings.
It was tough love on this Valentine’s Day for the Toreros, as they took a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth, only to watch it slowly slip away from them.
A solo home run from Jack Gurevitch in the first inning gave the Toreros an early lead, and a sacrifice fly gave San Diego a 2-0 lead in the second. A perfectly executed double-steal in the fifth inning plated the third run for San Diego, followed by an RBI single from Austin Smith to push the lead to 4-0.
The very next inning is where the downfall started for San Diego, as they watched TCU’s Isaac Cadena cut the deficit in half with a two-run home run. In the bottom of the seventh, TCU evened the score on an inside-the-park home run from Karsen Bowen. The inside-the-park homer just barely grazed off the glove of San Diego’s center fielder Aden Howard.
No more scoring would happen until the top of the 10th inning, where the first two men reached for the Horned Frogs. Two batters later, Cole Cramer hit a sacrifice fly to right field, which was plenty deep to score the winning run.
The defeat Friday will be the first of four games for the Toreros against the team from Fort Worth, a good early-season test for a San Diego team that went 41-15 overall last season, and earned a 20-4 conference record.
The second game of the series will begin Saturday at 5 p.m. PST. It will again be broadcasted on ESPN+.