'Eaters' Dominance over USC Ends in 8-3 Defeat
May 17, 2016 | Baseball
IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine's five-game win streak over the Trojans took a hit Tuesday night in Anteater Ballpark thanks in large part to a seven-run third inning for USC vaulting it to an 8-3 victory.
The crushing blow came in a 2-0 game with one out in the third inning. Anteater starter Ben Ritchey allowed three straight singles through the infield to load the bases, and served up a first-pitch grand slam to A.J. Ramirez to deep left field giving USC (24-25) a six run cushion and ending Ritchey's night.
The Trojans tacked on a couple more in the inning against reliever Shaun Vetrovec for a seven-run frame, the fourth-such inning allowed on the season by Anteater pitching, and second in as many games.
UCI (28-22, 8-10) was silenced through the early going by USC starter Marrick Crouse who shut down UCI for five innings allowing just a pair of Evan Cassolato singles en route to his second win on the year.
The 'Eaters erased the shutout with four straight hits to open up the seventh topped off by a Grant Palmer single through the right side to plate Andrew Martinez. USC brought in Brent Wheatley to stop and Anteater ideas stranding the bases loaded and keeping the UCI scoring to one.
The home hitters woke up again in the ninth inning for a pair of runs, but ran out of time succumbing to the Trojans, 8-3.
Ritchey's first career start was did not go as planned allowing six runs, two off homers, in just 2.1 innings to incur his third loss of the season. The final six innings were spotless thanks to Daniel Alvarez, Miles Glazier, and Mitchell Miller who each threw two innings each coming together to allow eight baserunners and strike out just as many.
USC's Corey Dempster launched a solo HR along with Ramirez. Dempster also scored twice, and was one of six Trojans with multiple hits as part of their 15-hit barrage. David Oppenheim also drove in a pair.
Palmer had an RBI for UCI along with Jake Hazard and Alex Guenette. Palmer entered the game as a sub scoring a run as well as did Martinez and Jonathan Munoz.
The loss drops UCI to 28-22 on the year, and completes its non-conference slate with a record of 20-12. It also finished up with an 8-5 record in midweek contests as remaining for the Anteaters are a pair of Big West weekend series with the squad sitting in a tie for seventh place at 8-10, just two games out of third place.
Elliot Surrey will lead the charge against a highly-touted bunch from UC Santa Barbara beginning Friday, May 20 at 6:30 p.m. The remainder of the weekend is anything but conventional with a 7:00 p.m. start time Saturday for the Fox Sports Prime Ticket broadcast, and the weekend climaxes with a nationally-televised showing of the Anteaters and Gauchos on ESPNU with a slight time change from the what had been advertised, and the game now starting at 6:00 p.m. Stay tuned into ucirvinesports.com and all of the social media channels for the baseball team like the Facebook page and @ucibsb on Twitter.
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