SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball make noise early and often Sunday at Baggett Stadium staking a huge early lead in route to a seven-inning, 17-1 win over Cal Poly to secure the series victory.

FIRST AND FOREMOST
UC Irvine (22-11, 16-4) had its first two batters retired before flipping the switch on Sunday. A pair of harmless singles from Mike Peabody and Luke Spillane set up Dillon Tatum to whack a two-strike pitch into right field doubling home each for the 2-0 lead. Three more hits poured more fuel onto the fire as the Anteaters led 5-0 before heading out to defense for the first time.

The second inning saw more offense, this time with the first three hitters reaching, and Peabody singling home the sixth run. A sac fly followed by Jacob Castro's second RBI double in as many innings quickly made it an 8-0 lead through two innings.

UPPERCUTS
The Sunday fight for the series was squarely on UCI's side, but a pair of big blows landed to solidify the game. Dillon Tatum, coming off a two-HR game in Saturday's win, turned around a two-strike pitch out to center field to make it 9-0 and start another two-out rally. A hit by pitch followed by five straight hits gave UCI another five-run frame leading 13-0 through four innings.

Cal Poly (17-15, 7-9) got on the board from a sac fly in their fifth inning, and then the knockout punch came in UCI's sixth inning as Mike Peabody swatted his first career grand slam to make it 17-1 on the team's 19th hit.

FINAL SCORE (7 INNINGS): UC IRVINE 17, CAL POLY 1
For the 'Eaters, its their fifth victory via run rule, all coming in since March 28. Every Anteater starter had a hit led by three each from Peabody, Castro, and Taishi Nakawake. Peabody scored three times as every starter crossed home plate. His five-RBI day coupled with Tatum's four led the charge as seven Anteater starters drove in a run. Tatum blast pushes him to the top of the Big West home run leaders with nine on the year.

Pitching took a backseat to the offensive eruption, but held its own allowing the single run on five total hits and one walk issued. Peter Van Loon went four innings and did not figure in the decision striking out one and dancing around three hits and a walk. Michael Stanford won his second game allowing a run in his one inning. Andre Antone and Josh Ibarra each pitched perfect frames with three strikeouts between them to finish off the shortened game.

Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"We couldn't wait to get to the field today because even yesterday winning the second game, that was about as out of character as we've played the entire year. So I think we're excited and motivated to get out here today and show off those winning habits and play more in character. How we went about stuff today was way better than that second game yesterday even in a win. We scored 5 runs in the 1st today with nobody on and two outs."

"Up and down the lineup, everybody's seeing the depth of this team. Even the arms, we have good guys that didn't even get to pitch. One of the big takeaways is Dillon Tatum had a huge weekend. He keeps getting better and not just the home runs. His first at-bat is a two-strike, opposite-field, two-RBI double, then a two-strike sacrifice fly, and a two-strike home run to center field. He continues to get better and his extra-base hits to at-bat numbers are a joke."

"All weekend, our bullpen, we didn't use them much overall, but they were huge in what we did Friday, and three good innings from Stanford, Antone, and Ibarra. Ibarra is starting to look like Ibarra. Van Loon we're still trying to manage the blister thing, and when we can manage the workload we will. We want to get guys in the game and guys that can pitch, but when you're getting starts like we've gotten, it makes using a lot of guys difficult."

NON-CONFERENCE DETOUR
The Anteaters sit 22-11 overall with a 16-4 Big West record, one game up for first place. Next weekend, the 'Eaters return home for their final visit against non-Big West competition hosting a ranked Oregon State Beavers program coming off a sweep. This will be a three-game series with one game each day starting at 3:00 p.m. Friday, April 23, and a pair of 1:00 p.m. starts Saturday and Sunday.