Northridge’s Problem Is Only the Big Inning : College baseball: In keeping with a season-long trend, Matadors stay close until the seventh, then give up five runs in a 9-1 loss to Fresno State.

FRESNO —  Near the end of a year punctuated by debilitating injury, dissension and freak plays, Cal State Northridge’s postseason hopes were wiped away Saturday night in a decisive 9-1 Western Athletic Conference loss to Fresno State before a season-high 3,219 at Beiden Field.

Yet there were no tears.

“It’s been the strangest year ever,” Northridge pitcher Aaron D’Aoust said. “Some have been hard to believe.”

The victory by the Bulldogs (35-23, 14-9 in conference play) moved them within one-half game of first-place San Diego State (34-22, 14-8) and marked their 14th win in 15 games. Fresno State could move into a first-place tie with a victory over the Matadors in today’s regular-season finale.

Yet pennant fever at Fresno State came to a screeching halt with some sobering news from San Diego: Vince Beall of Cal State Sacramento, a 21-year-old outfielder, was found dead in his hotel room Saturday morning after losing a year-long battle with lung and liver cancer.

In a team vote, Sacramento decided to return home and not to play the final two games of a three-game series with the Aztecs. A decision on whether the games will be played is expected from WAC officials Sunday evening, depending on the outcome of the Northridge-Fresno State series.

“Just about everything’s happened this year,” said Northridge Coach Bill Kernen, who learned of Beall’s death before the game.

“If there was ever a year of the full moon, this was it. There’s been so much stuff. . . . This is just more tragic (than the rest).”

D’Aoust (7-4) pitched his best game of the season, but was done in by a five-run seventh. It merely continued a disconcerting tradition wherein Northridge was finally put away by a season-long bugaboo--the disastrous big inning where nothing goes right.

Trailing, 3-1, the Matadors were very much alive entering the seventh. However, the door was opened by a throwing error by second baseman Joey Arnold--usually the team’s center fielder--and things blew up in short order. In fact, Fresno State loaded the bases without hitting the ball out of the infield.

Scott Vigil dumped a sacrifice bunt in front of the plate and D’Aoust threw late to second. Ryan Wood dropped another bunt down the third base line and D’Aoust, attempting to fire to third, bobbled the ball. Wood was given a charitable hit.

There was nothing cheap about the next four hacks by Fresno State: Singles by Noel Roberts, Javier Renteria and Kyle Fjelstad and a ground-rule double by James Borges accounted for five runs as the Bulldogs blew the game open, 8-1.

“It was like playing golf,” Kernen said of D’Aoust. “He parred every hole, then he hit three in the water.”

Roberts was Fresno State’s bogeyman. He had four hits and is seven for eight in the series with six runs batted in.

Right-hander Jared Fernandez (11-4) held Northridge to nine hits. The only run came on a solo homer by Keyaan Cook in the fourth.

Consequently, injury-wracked Northridge (25-29, 12-11) will not advance to the NCAA playoffs for the first time in four seasons at the Division I level. It marked the first time in Kernen’s baseball career that he has been associated with a losing team.

Still, in light of the day’s larger perspective, Kernen was somewhat upbeat.

“We’ll just try to come out with a smile on our face and play some Sunday ball,” Kernen said.