STANFORD, Calif. – Texas State (47-12) bashed three home runs, two of them coming from Jose Gonzalez, on its way to beating Stanford (42-15) 5-2 Saturday night at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond. The victory sent the Bobcats to the regional final for the first-time in program history.
 
"What a really good baseball game. Starting with Levi Wells and a really great job by him. Got the game to Stivors and felt confident with him rolling out there," said head coach Steven Trout. "On the defensive side, other than a really tough play, that is now two games of playing clean defense. Offensively going against a really good arms in [Alex] Williams, our biggest key was staying patient with him. I didn't see hitting three home runs against him but Jose [Gonzalez] had other plans."
 
Gonzalez hit two solo homers in his first two at bats of the game. Also hitting a four-bagger was Wesley Faison. The duo finished with two RBI apiece and another came courtesy of Justin Thompson. Along with Gonzalez, Ben McClain also recorded two base knocks.
 
A dominate start came from Levi Wells (8-2), who struck out six in seven innings to pick up the win. Tristan Stivors recorded five strikeouts over the final two innings to earn his 18th save of the season to tie the Sun Belt Conference record season mark that has been held since 2013 by Florida Atlantic's Hugh Adams. Suffering the loss was Alex Williams (8-2) after giving up five runs on five hits in 4.2 innings.
 
Gonzalez put the Bobcats on the board first with a solo homer off a 1-0 offering in the first.
   
The Cardinal answered right back with a run in the next half inning to tie the score.
 
Gonzalez led off the fourth with his second home run of the game, this one to left center. Justin Thompson followed with a double down the left field line. He did not have to wait long to come around to score as Faison crushed an 0-1 pitch to left field for his 11th round tripper of the season to give TXST a 4-1 lead.
   
The next inning saw McClain double off the left field wall. After he advanced to third on a groundout to the right side, Gonzalez walked and Thompson then hit a grounder to the second baseman. The Stanford shortstop dropped the throw on a potential inning ending double play that allowed McClain to score and increase the advantage to four.
 
A run was tallied in the sixth by the Cardinal to make it 5-2 contest.
 
Stivors struck out the first two batters he faced in the eighth before allowing the next two to reach base. He closed out the frame by getting Eddie Park looking on a third strike call.
 
The first two Stanford hitters reached to begin the ninth, but Stivors responded by striking out the next two batters and then seeing Braden Montgomery to fly out to center to end the game.
 
The Bobcats will face with UC Santa Barbara or the Cardinal on Sunday with first pitch scheduled for 9 p.m. CT. With a win, TXST will advance to the Super Regionals while a loss would see the teams play a winner-take-all game on Monday.
 
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