For BYU, the baseball season ended in disappointing fashion Wednesday night in the West Coast Conference Tournament at Banner Island Ballpark in Stockton, California.
The No. 4 seeded Cougars fell to No. 5 Loyola Marymount 5-1 in a single-elimination game.
“It stings a little bit. We’re better than we played tonight. It’s a tough loss,” said BYU interim coach Trent Pratt. “I really thought we had a team that could make a run through this thing. That’s baseball. Things happen. Just give credit to Loyola.”
While BYU goes home, LMU advances, and will take on No. 1 seed Gonzaga Thursday.
Wednesday’s game was scoreless through the first four innings before the Lions scored on an RBI double in the fifth.
In the sixth, Dylan Dennis blasted a two-run home run to propel LMU to a 3-0 advantage.
The Cougars finally got on the scoreboard in the sixth when Mitch McIntyre was hit by a pitch and he eventually scored on a single by Cole Gambill.
But BYU couldn’t muster any more runs.
“We couldn’t quite do enough at the plate to get ourselves back in the game,” Pratt said. “We had some chances. I think if we get one big hit early that might have sparked something for us. We just didn’t get that one big hit tonight.”
LMU added a run in the seventh and eighth innings, and the Lions ended up with 15 hits.
“We were pitching out of jams from the third inning on,” Pratt said.
BYU struggled to get any offense going against pitcher Diego Barrera, who surrendered just four hits and collected eight strikeouts in 5 2⁄3 innings.
“It was a tough night for us. Give credit to Loyola. They came and played good. Barerra did a good job,” Pratt said. “He’s been good all year and we just couldn’t quite figure him out. It was a tough night at the plate for us. You have those nights. It stinks that it happened tonight.”
The Cougars finished the season with a 33-21 record.
Pratt took the reins of the program in April, when head coach Mike Littlewood abruptly resigned.
At one point, BYU found itself in seventh place in the WCC standings but thanks to a nine-game winning streak, the Cougars earned a spot in the conference tournament.
Pratt said he’s “super proud” of his players this season.
“It wasn’t easy going through what we dealt with … Down the stretch, we played really good baseball,” he added. “Tonight stings. It hurts because it’s over now. But what they did all year and how they handled themselves, I couldn’t be more proud of the things that we’ve done.”
Now that the season is over, BYU administration will determine whether to name Pratt as the head coach or to hire a new one.
For Pratt and the rest of the staff, the future is uncertain.
“Hopefully we find something out soon and we can go from there. Obviously, we want to be here. I love BYU,” he said. “I love the players we have. I love our administration and what they do. Man, I’d jump at the chance to stay and be able to coach here.”