DAVIS, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball found a way to score its first-ever four-game sweep helped by spotless bullpen work and a decisive home run by Mike Peabody in the 11th inning to down UC Davis, 5-4, Sunday afternoon at Swimley Field at Dobbins Stadium.

OFFENSIVE STRATEGY
Starters Peter Van Loon and Tim Wieser owned the first two innings before the offenses made their presence. Luke Spillane broke the seal with a big two-run single in the third inning for a 2-0 UCI (10-7, 4-0) lead.

Each side traded solo home runs in the fourth inning starting with the Anteater side as Dillon Tatum belted his second home run of the weekend to start the frame and extend the lead to 3-0. UC Davis (5-13, 0-4) struck right back on the first pitch of their half from Michael Campagna to close it to 3-1.

BACK TO SQUARE ONE
The 'Eaters added a run for a third straight inning as Adrian Damla poked a double for a 4-1 lead. UC Davis returned the favor in the bottom of the inning getting a pair of timely two-out hits from Campagna and Jake Brandel knotting up the game at 4-4 after five innings and leaving each team to their bullpens.

ARMED AND READY
The bullpens stepped up and down the stretch shutting down both offenses from the sixth and into extra innings. The 'Eaters called upon Dylan Riddle to get out of the fifth inning, and he continued with 1.1 perfect innings striking out a pair. He gave way to Jacob King for the second time in the series striking out four over in his two innings. Gordon Ingebritson carried the load in the ninth and extra innings with three strikeouts.

UC Davis was powered by Nathan Peng who struck out six in 4.1 innings allowing just three Anteater baserunners. Steven Ouellette shut down an 'Eater rally in the ninth and 10th in his 1.2 innings.

THE DECISIVE BLOW
Once again, a leadoff homer came to the rescue for UCI off the bat of Mike Peabody to start the 11th inning to center field, his first of the season and fourth of his career. The bottom of the 11th saw Ingebritson return allowing a pair of baserunners, but he induced a double play started by Connor McGuire at third base stepping on the bag and throwing across to first for the game-winning play.

FINAL (11): UC IRVINE 5, UC DAVIS 4
Ingebritson wins his first game of the season. Peter Van Loon returned after missing a weekend with a blister to put up 4.2 innings striking out seven hitters. As a squad, the 'Eaters struck out 16 Aggies, the ninth time in team history with 16 or more Ks in a game. Ouellette took the loss for the Aggies.

Spillane drove the offense with three more hits and two RBIs for six on the weekend. Tatum homered for the second time on the weekend giving him three this year, tying him for the active career leaders momentarily until Peabody took it back with his fourth. Peabody added a pair of hits on his day and a walk. Tatum scored defensive honors throwing out both attempted base stealers on the day.

UC Davis' offense ran through Campagna with three hits and three RBIs including the home run. Kyler Arenado also had two hits and scored a run.

Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"I told the guys I was really proud of their intent to win. It wasn't going our way for a long time, and then a couple innings we were close, but it's a long weekend with the four games, but I was really proud of our guys continuing to play especially when it got tough.

"We got six-plus out of the bullpen of zeroes and that goes unnoticed at times how good those guys pitched out of the bullpen, and a big reason they were able to do that was because of the starting pitching all weekend. The fact that in game four of a series to have the pitching we had available goes to starters, and the relievers today were awesome."

"I'm really proud of Mike Peabody, it was not a very good weekend for him offensively, he'd be the first to tell you, but his ability to lose himself in the team and keep playing, and then for him to get that big hit was pretty cool."

"If you want to play for the championship in this league, if you had a chance to sweep you needed to, and I think sweeps are going to be harder to come by now with four-game series. These are the types of games you need to win to be in contention to win the league because it's a long weekend. It's hard to win one let alone four, and we did what championship-caliber teams do on a Sunday."

"We're glad to have this 12-game road trip behind us, happy to be home-heavy coming up. I think it's been good for us, it's nice to be out of our normal routine, speaking for myself. I think it's been good to get on the road, I like generally it's good to get out on the road early in the year for the guys to be around each other and not have the other distractions of home around. We're ready to get home and be home for a while and not sitting around on a bus a much. I think we've begun to see roles develop, understand who can do what, it's been good for us."

NEXT SERIES
The 'Eaters locked up its first-ever four-game series sweep in the 10th four-gamer in program history. They return home after going 6-6 on their 12-game road trip, and take on another Big West squad that won their opening series with a chance to sweep four in Hawai'i. The two kick off their series Friday, March 26 with a 3:00 p.m. first pitch, Pacific Time.