Cal State San Marcos baseball battled against one of the best lineups in the NAIA and battled through 6 errors to pick up its biggest win of the season on Tuesday, defeating #14 Azusa Pacific 8-7 at Poway High School.

CSUSM is now 22-12 on the season.

From the start, it was clear that these two teams were going to go toe-to-toe for all nine innings.  Azusa scored in the first, and CSUSM quickly answered with a run of its own on a Josh Miller sacrifice fly.

In the second, San Marcos would take its first lead as Ricardo Moran singled in a run, and James Scott added a sac fly to make it 3-1.

Azusa, however, was not going away - they would re-take the lead in the following innings, going up 5-3 by the fourth on the strength of a monster home run by Bryce Cutspec.

Cougar starter Johnny Holtman gave way to Travis McCracken on the mound in the sixth after five tough innings of work against an Azusa team that came in hitting over .330.  McCracken was able to finish off the inning and keep the deficit at two. 

And San Marcos would close the deficit entirely in the bottom of the sixth.  With two outs and the bases loaded, Scott delivered a huge two-run single to tie the game 5-5.

Azusa went back up 7-5 in the top of the seventh, but CSUSM once again proved resilient.  Scott Clement led off the bottom of the inning with a single, and Josh Miller was hit by a pitch.  That put two on for Coleman, who smoked a double to left to plate both runs, with Miller narrowly beating the throw home.  Coleman would get to third on that throw, which allowed him to eventually score the go-ahead run on a Mike Pena groundout.

Now up 8-7, it was McCracken's job to protect the tenuous one-run lead, and the lefty did it brilliantly.  He worked a scoreless eighth and ninth to lock down the big win.

CSUSM will next play at San Diego Christian on the 21st.