SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Cade Feeney fired a career-high eight strikeouts as the North Dakota State baseball team came up short in the season opener at Sacramento State, 5-3, on Friday night at John Smith Field.

Druw Sackett got the Bison (0-1) off to a fast start connecting on a home run in his first at-bat of the season to make the score 1-0 in the first inning. The Hornets (1-0) answered right back in the bottom half pushing across three runs on five hits to steal the lead after one, 3-1. Following a scoreless second frame, Sacramento State stretched its edge to 4-1 after an RBI double into right center off the bat of Martin Vincelli-Simard.

The game then went scoreless for three innings until Wehiwa Aloy delivered a sacrifice fly into center field to send a run across and increase the lead to 5-1. Stephen Lund, who was making his NDSU debut, tried to get a late rally going for the Bison in the ninth with a two RBI home run to cut the deficit down to two, 5-3. However, NDSU couldn't get anything going the rest of the way and dropped the contest, 5-3.

Feeney (0-1) made the start on the mound and picked up the loss after tossing a career-high eight strikeouts over 5.0 innings. Wyatt Nelson finished the final 3.0 innings with one strikeout.

The Bison connected on three hits with Sackett, Lund and James Dunlap each registering one.

NDSU will continue its series with Sacramento State tomorrow. First pitch is set for 3:00 p.m. CT