STANFORD, CALIF. --- UC Irvine baseball won twice Sunday routing North Dakota State, 18-3, and coming back to top Stanford, 8-4, to survive into the Regional Final Monday night at Klein Field at the Sunken Diamond.
GAME 1
The day started out with a bang as the Anteaters (43-17, 32-8) first had to get by Summit League champions North Dakota State, and UCI wasted little time.
Five runs in the top of the first highlighted by a towering three-run home run by
Dillon Tatum pushing him into a tie for the Anteater single-season lead with his 14th.
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Quickly, the 'Eaters were adding to the lead scoring four times in the second inning as
Nathan Church started it off with a solo home run, and it was 9-0 UC Irvine after two innings.
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HOME COOKING
While the offense was dialing things in,
Trenton Denholm was having his own dominant outing on the mound starting off with a pair of zeroes, and riding that through seven innings in a return to Northern California one last time. He pitched into the eighth inning before exiting allowing just six hits, a single run, and picking up three strikeouts en route to his 21st career win.
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FINAL SCORE GAME 1: UC IRVINE 18, NORTH DAKOTA STATE 3
When all was said and done, UCI had put up 18 runs in an elimination game including a season-high 22 hits.
Luke Spillane led the crew with four hits with two runs scored and two driven in. Three Anteater home runs cleared the fence with Tatum's one and a pair for
Nathan Church, his first two-HR game, with the second one tying the Anteater single-season hit record as his 94th. Church and Tatum each led the way driving in four runs on the afternoon. Eight 'Eaters drove a run in while 10 different Anteaters scored a run with seven scoring multiple times.
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Denholm improved to 6-2 while
Tanner Brooks cleaned up the final 1.2 innings allowing two unearned runs and striking out three. North Dakota State (41-18, 20-11) was battered around starting with Evan Sankey allowing eight runs in 1.2 innings to fall to 7-3. Five of their six pitchers allowing a run. Their offense centered around Bennett Hostetler who had three hits and an RBI. Jake Malec also reached four times scoring once.
The win propelled UC Irvine into Sunday's night matchup with host Stanford needing another win to advance to Monday and the regional final
GAME 2
The big matchup had begun with Stanford (35-15) trying to end the regional with a win. They got things going with a run in the second inning on a first-pitch, solo home run by Nick Brueser to go up 1-0.
Peter Van Loon would bounce back and halt the scoring while striking out five in his first two innings. Stanford starter Quinn Mathews got out of a couple early jams including getting
Dillon Tatum to groundout with the bases loaded in the first.
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The Anteaters would flip the script in the third inning, however, as
Mike Peabody reached on a hit by pitch, and
Justin Torres turned around a high fastball for his second home run of the regional to put UCI ahead, 2-1.
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TRADING BLOWS
The Cardinal now staring at their first deficit of the weekend, they would immediately turn the tide in the fourth inning. A pair of runners on base brought up Tommy Troy who parked a ball in the exact spot Brueser did to swing the lead back to Stanford, 4-2.
Both teams were into the bullpen by the sixth inning as
Gordon Ingebritson helped stem the tide and closer Zach Grech through a season-high worth of pitches to slow down the Anteater attack. Christian Robinson would put a charge into one in the sixth going for a crushing haymaker driving a ball to straightaway center field, but
Mike Peabody was there to leap and bring a potential two-run home run back to keep it a two-run game.
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CARDIAC KIDS
The eighth inning began with the same 4-2 score, and the feel shifted with one out as
Luke Spillane drilled a ball down the line called foul. After review, the call was overturned giving Spillane a double. Next up with pinch-hitter
Jake Palmer, scratched late before Sunday's first game, on to hit, and his liner off the glove of pitcher Joey Dixon did just enough as Palmer slid head-first into first for the single.setting the stage for Church.
The third-year Anteater, after breaking the UCI single-season hit record earlier in the game on an infield single, found the biggest part of the field in left-center splitting the outfielders to bring two runners home and tie the game up.
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After another pitching change and an intentional walk to
Mike Peabody, it was up to the rest of the lineup to find the offense, and they did.
Thomas McCaffrey reached out for another infield single of the pitcher to score the go-ahead run in Church.
Jacob Castro followed with an infield single of his own to score Peabody and make it 6-4.
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Connor McGuire was next up batting for the second time in the inning and pelted a double down the line to bring more insurance home finishing a six-run frame to lead 8-4.
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FINAL SCORE GAME 2: UC IRVINE 8, STANFORD 4
The win completes a huge doubleheader sweep, the seventh of which for UCI on the year, giving it a chance to advance to the Super Regionals Monday in a winner-take-all game at 7:00 p.m. It also served as the 17th win this season for the Anteaters when trailing in a game.
Church and Torres each had two hits and two RBI coming through in clutch situations.
Mike Peabody reached four times scoring twice including a pair of hit by pitches to give him an even 50 in his career.
Anteater pitching was masterful starting with starter
Peter Van Loon back in his native Northern California and grinding out five innings and four earned runs allowed to go with just one walk and eight strikeouts. The bullpen appeared when they needed them most starting with 2.2 shutout innings from
Gordon Ingebritson with two strikeouts, and
Jacob King closing things out retiring all four hitters he faced to pick up his third win of the season.
Stanford got all four runs on the long ball with Troy and Brueser producing the hits. Joey Dixon drew the loss allowing three runs in 1.1 innings. A flock of six Cardinal pitchers together allowed 12 hits and struck out seven Anteater hitters. Zach Grech was the most effective going 3.1 shutout relief innings.
Postgame Quotes
Ben Orloff -
"Really exciting win for us, kind of the culmination of a really good day. We're down and playing from behind, not ideally how we drew it up. We got a really good start out of Peter Van Loon, they hit a couple mistakes for home runs that put them up. Gordon Ingebritson and Jacob King came in and showed why they're first team All-Big West pitchers and the luxury that they had not thrown before today.
"That eighth inning, we get a bunch of clutch hits - Church, McCaffrey with two strikes and two outs, Castro as well, McGuire hits a double, and really proud of the effort of our team to come from behind to win two games at Stanford. Couldn't be prouder of them, and I think the Big West Conference schedule that we played playing four games all weekend playing two games every Saturday kind of prepared us for this, and tonight was a lot of fun."
"We're happy we played in the game tonight. The game this morning was huge, Trenton Denholm giving us the start that he gave us and help give us an extremely rested bullpen for the game tonight. "
Mike Peabody -
"I saw a lot of heart. I saw us just wanting it more, competing as well as we can and playing the games that we've always played."
"We've always known that we're best when our defense and pitching are on. We know our offense will come around at some point, but our defense is what we pride ourselves on and we didn't have the bset game defensively yesterday, but we came back and we showed what we can do."
REGIONAL FINAL
It all comes down to Monday night as these same two teams, UC Irvine and Stanford, will play starting at 7:00 p.m. Both teams still have yet to assign a starter, but the 'Eaters will once again be the home team looking to advance to its fifth Super Regional. As with all the games this weekend, all the action will be on ESPN3 and KUCI.
