SAN DIEGO — San Diego baseball (30-10, 16-6 WCC) rolled to its 30th win of the 2021 season on Thursday night at Fowler Park, taking down conference opponent Portland (23-25, 13-12 WCC) by a score of 7-1. The decision marked USD's 21st home victory of the year, tying the Toreros' 2017 squad for the most home wins in a single season since Fowler Park opened in 2013.

Freshman Will Worthington kicked off the scoring in the bottom of the second, notching his 14th RBI of the year by sending a sacrifice fly to right field that plated senior Adam Lopez. A batter later, true freshman Kevin Sim launched his first college home run to deep left-center field, scoring sophomore Caleb Ricketts to give San Diego an early 3-0 lead.

Ricketts notched a couple RBIs of his own in the third, singling through the right side of the infield to drive in graduate student Thomas Luevano and junior Shane McGuire and push the USD advantage to 5-0. The catcher/first baseman turned in the Toreros' most complete offensive performance of the contest, going 3-for-4 with a double, two RBIs, and a run scored. 

McGuire, in turn, punctuated the Toreros' productive evening at the plate by driving in a pair of runs with a triple, splitting the right-center field gap with a line drive that brought home true freshman Jack Costello and sophomore Cody Jefferis and moved the score to 7-1 in favor of USD.

"Overall, a great team win…there's a lot of great performers tonight on the offensive side," USD head coach Rich Hill said after the game. "It was great to see Kevin hit his first home run…Shane McGuire had a big hit, a big night from Caleb Ricketts. That's left-on-left, and he's just smoking balls."

Sophomore Jake Miller started the game on the mound for San Diego and went 5.2 innings while allowing just one run. The right-hander scattered four hits, walked two, and struck out four in his outing, earning the win to move to a team-best 6-1 on the year.

'I thought Jake Miller gave us a quality start," Hill said of his Thursday night pitcher. "He didn't have his best stuff, but he battled and he kept us in the game."

Miller was relieved by freshman Brycen Mautz, redshirt sophomore Ryan Robinson, and graduate student Kieran Shaw, who teamed up to throw 3.1 scoreless frames to end the game and secure a 7-1 victory for USD. Shaw led the way for Torero relievers, recording a pair of strikeouts in his 1.2 frames of work.

"Brycen Mautz came in with that high velocity and really shut the door in the sixth inning, and I thought Kieran Shaw really shut the door in that eighth with a big strikeout of Briley Knight," the 23rd-year head coach added regarding his bullpen.

The WCC series continues tomorrow night at Fowler Park. First pitch is set for 6 p.m.