SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley baseball team dropped the Western Athletic Conference opener to Sacramento State 5-4 in 10 innings on Friday at John Smith Field.

UTRGV (14-8, 0-1 WAC) trailed 4-2 entering the ninth when senior Coleman Grubbs hit his first home run of the season against Austin Roberts (2-1). Junior Christian Sepulveda followed with a single, moved to second on a groundout and scored on an error to tie the game.

In the 10^th, Trevor Doyle hit a leadoff double against senior Nikki Rowe alum Ryan Jackson (1-3). Two batters later, Dawsen Bacho hit a walk-off double.

Sepulveda finished with his second-straight two-hit game, going 2-for-4 with two RBI and two runs scored. His other hit was a two-run home run onto the fifth level of a parking structure beyond the left field wall in the seventh inning to tie the game at 2. It was Sepulveda’s first-career home run.

That was it against Parker Brahms, who struck out seven and walked one while allowing three hits in seven innings.

In his first Friday night start, senior Trevelle Hill matched Brahms nearly pitch-for-pitch, striking out six while allowing seven hits without a walk in six innings.

Sacramento State (14-7, 1-0 WAC) scratched across singles runs against Hill in the fourth on a Trevor Doyle triple and the sixth on a Steven Moretto double.

The first two batters walked to start the seventh. Then, after a sacrifice bunt, Martin Vincelli-Simard hit an RBI-single and Matt Smith came up with a sacrifice fly to give Sacramento State the lead.

Bacho finished with three hits while Moretto and Vincelli-Simard each had two hits.

UTRGV and Sacramento State play the middle game of this three-game series on Saturday at 5 p.m.

McALLEN - On the final night of the regular season, the McAllen Memorial girls soccer team bested Rowe 3-1. Both teams are onto the playoffs, which kickoff next week. CHANNEL 5's Joel Villanueva has the recap. 

HARLINGEN - Friday night's diamond action began with a good match-up in district 32-6A. Harlingen South outslugged San Benito 9-8 to move to 2-0 in district. Our baseball highlights saw Sharyland beat Roma for the second time this week. CHANNEL 5's Joel Villanueva has the highlights. 

EDINBURG - Round two. A place no UTRGV men's basketball team has been able to reach at the division 1 level; until now.

"It's awesome to be apart of that, because you're going to be remembered as a part of that team, that really kicked it off and really started everything," said Johnny Crnogorac. "And hopefully it keeps getting better and better."

"The notoriety that they school gets, we need that," said Terry Winn III. "The school hasn't had the notoriety that we brought to the school here in the last year or so, so it's cool, it's great, it's a good thing."

The last time UTRGV competed in the second round of post season play was 1968, when the school was D-2.

During his time here, Coach Lew Hill has made strides with the program every year. This one being the biggest.

"I told them when I first took the job, I said you have to crawl with me first, so someone the other day text me and said 'we starting to walk now coach', so just the excitement and seeing the athletic department growing and the school growing in the three years that I have been here," said Lew Hill.

With Grambling State in the past, it's time to focus on their new opponent; Texas Southern.

"We have a style of basketball that we don't really change for anybody, we just kind of adapt it and mold it per our opponent," said Solomon Hainna. "Texas Southern is really good, they score the ball well, and they have really good pieces. I'm sure coach will go over that today and tell us what we need to change and better prepare for them. I'm sure they will get our best bet, and we will get theirs."

When asked what it's going to take to win, this is what they had to say.

"I think a lot of defense," said Crnogorac. "A lot of defensive rotations, stopping the drive, help defense rotate to outside shooters after someone has driven the ball and kicked it out."

"We just have to listen to coach and go through the game plan and go out there and put our best effort on the floor," said Winn.

"Stop the dribble drive,' said Hainna. "The dribble drive hurts because it makes the defense shift in a way that you don't really want it to and it opens up a lot of shooters so if teams are knocking down the three ball it makes it hard to beat those teams so if we can eliminate the dribble drive and rebound the ball. I think we will be in good shape."

Tip of is schedule for 7pm at the UTRGV Fieldhouse.