SAN DIEGO, Calif. --- The Anteaters picked up where they left off over the weekend slugging, pitching, and playing spotless defense on its way to a 10-2 victory Tuesday night at Tony Gwynn Stadium over San Diego State
UC Irvine (18-13, 3-3) began with a hit parade in the second inning.
Cole Kreuter and
Parker Coss hit back-to-back doubles to plate the first run, and then with two outs, UCI would break down the door with another double from
Konnor Zickefoose to plate Coss and run-scoring singles from
Ryan Johnston and
Brendan Brooks to set the table for
Ryan Fitzpatrick to deliver a booming three-run homer out to left field for a seven-run Anteater inning.
Meanwhile,
Trenton Denholm, making his first start in nearly two weeks, found a groove keeping the Aztecs (21-12) scoreless through his four innings. The defense took a page from Sunday's performance starting in the fourth inning as
Ryan Johnston, making his first appearance in center field as an Anteater, laid out fully horizontal in the left center gap to take away extra bases to start the fourth UCI would execute in every aspects cutting down a pair of lead runners at third base on grounder to short, picking a pair of players off at first base including
Matt Reitano to end an inning following a strikeout, and
Jake Palmer one-upped Johnston with a running catch up against the left-center wall full stride to preserve the Anteater shutout.
The 'Eaters entered the ninth inning keeping SDSU scoreless, and reached 23 consecutive scoreless frames before the Aztecs plated a pair of runs with two outs to break up consecutive shutouts bids for Anteater pitching in the 10-2 final.
Nick Anderson cleaned up after the 'Eater 7-spot with an RBI single in the fourth and two more on a sixth-inning single to get the 'Eaters up to 10 runs.
Denholm worked his second win of the season, and was joined by
Sean Sparling, in two innings, and
Jake Lachemann and
Alonzo Garcia, one inning each, to toss scoreless baseball on the evening.
The win kept UCI unbeaten in midweek matchups now 6-0 on the season, and they did it against a really good arm in senior Jacob Erickson. Prior to Tuesday night, Erickson had gone at least five innings and allowed no more than two runs in all three of his starts all season, and entered allowing just nine earned runs and four doubles all season, but UC Irvine's seven runs and three doubles raised his ERA a full 1.47 in just one night.
UCI takes the season series from San Diego State winning each, and will return to conference play over the weekend as it hosts UC Santa Barbara for three starting Friday, Apr. 13. All three matchups will be broadcasted on ESPN3
