The De Anza College baseball team lost to the Mission College Saints 16-1 on Saturday, April 12.

Freshman pitcher Kavin Mistry started the game and managed to keep the Dons on track for the first four innings while allowing only two runs.

The only run the Dons scored was courtesy of freshman outfielder Christopher O’Connor in the bottom of the fourth inning closing the gap for the Dons to 2-1.

During the fifth inning, Mistry was substituted after allowing the first three Saints players to bat to get on base. The Saints scored three runs in the inning to give them a 5-1 lead heading to the bottom half of the fifth.

In the top of the seventh inning, freshman pitcher Grant Shomberg took over at the mound for the Dons but allowed Mission’s Reed Kienle, Matt Cole and Justin Hearn to score. Freshman right-hander Jack Buchman replaced Shomberg and allowed five runs to score after coming into the game.

Freshman pitcher Jake Smirnov replaced Buchman to hold the Saints to eight runs in the seventh inning. After the Dons got the last out of the inning, the score was 13-1 in favor of the Saints.

“We had a couple of chances to make a defensive play and we didn’t at some critical times in the game,” De Anza head coach Scott Hertler said. “We didn’t play very well today. This was not one of our better games.”

In the top of the eighth inning, the Saints added two more runs to push their lead to 15-1.

Freshman pitcher Cole Lang entered in the ninth inning and allowed only one run that increased the score to 16-1 in favor of Mission.

“Baseball comes out to three things: pitching, hitting and defense,” Hertler said. “You got to play all three of them to have the chance to win.

“We didn’t have very good pitchers today, we didn’t swing the bats very well and we had some chances to play good defense, stop them and we didn’t.”

Despite the defeat, Hertler expects his team to perform to the end of the season.

“We’ve got 45 innings left in the season (to) play as hard as we can,” Hertler said. “(We have to) practice good and play hard every time we get the chance to play.”

The Dons’ next game is on Tuesday, April 22 at 2:30 p.m. against Ohlone College.