During the month of June UC Irvine Athletics is highlighting the top 30 individual performances of the 2019-20 academic year presented by UCI Health.

Peter Van Loon
Baseball / Junior
February 29, 2020

Peter Van Loon joined the program as the Saturday starter in 2020, and was effective in his first two starts, but could not find the win column until his third start in hostile territory at the University of Washington.

Van Loon got a big head start with three runs in the first inning from the offense, and rode that momentum holding the Huskies hitless through nearly the first three innings, adding an emphatic fourth inning where he struck out the side, and pushing the rest of the squad forward as the lead doubled before he exited from timely freshman hitting and veteran defense behind him.

"I really tried to focus on first pitch strikes. Fastball command has been a little shaky recently so I've been trying to dial it down," noted Peter Van Loon who had yet to put in a full performance in his first two starts which included no hits and four walks in 4.1 innings last Saturday.

"It's easy to say just go out there and don't walk guys, but where does that start? I noticed my first pitch strikes had been terrible recently so I really decided to treat each one like it was a 3-2 count and try to get it over. After that, each pitch builds on the last and the confidence in the fastball builds."

Van Loon scored his first career Division I win from a career high seven innings allowing five hits, striking out five, and shutting down the Husky offense with help from the bullpen toward a 9-0 shutout victory in the Pac-12 opponent's house.

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