STANFORD, CALIF. --- UC Irvine baseball put together a steady comeback in the regional final at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond, but the host Stanford Cardinal capitalized on an immense head start to drop the Anteaters, 11-8, ending its season Monday night.
SOUR START
The Stanford Cardinal (36-15) were off and running on the first pitch getting a single from leadoff hitter Eddie Park. The second batter of the game, Tim Tawa, would then put runs on the board launching a two-run home run for the 2-0 lead off Anteater starter
Michael Frias coming off his 112-pitch Friday performance.
A couple more hits spelled the end of the day for Frias after getting a sacrifice fly.
Gordon Ingebritson entered and allowed another sac fly now looking up at a 4-0 deficit with two outs.
The inning, however, was not over as an error allowed Drew Bowser to reach, and then a couple infield singles loaded the bases back to the top of the order for Eddie Park. He singled home two of them followed by Tawa again adding his third RBI of the inning, and just like that it was a 7-0 Cardinal lead before the Anteaters had even batted.
GOING TO WORK
The Anteater half of the first provided something to feel good about as
Nathan Church led the frame off with an opposite field home run to make it 7-1.
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The defense continue to falter, however, for UC Irvine (43-18, 32-8) putting runners on base for Stanford in the second and third innings that would come around for unearned runs and help Stanford grow their lead.
The 'Eaters continued to battle back including
Dillon Tatum who mashed his record-breaking 15th home run of the season well out to left field for a two-run shot.
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Everything UCI would do seemed to be countered by the Cardinals the sides traded runs through the middle innings, and the Anteater deficit remained while countless opportunities to add more runs fell by the wayside.
DIGGING IN
In an 11-5 game in the seventh, two 'Eaters were quickly retired bringing up
Jacob Castro who worked a walk to get effective reliever Quinn Mathews out of the game. Tommy O'Rourke didn't help the situation and walked two more hitters to load the bases and bring on Zach Grech a day after tossing a career-high 56 pitches to face
Luke Spillane.
A battle of an at-bat ensued that Spillane eventually won slipping a double inside the first base line to score a couple and get the game to within 11-7.
With
Josh Ibarra doing all he could over 3.2 innings where he allowed two unearned runs and struck out five, he gave way to
Nick Pinto for 1.1 innings, and the
Jacob King bringing up the rear allowing a run in his first inning, but dialing it in over the final two innings including four strikeouts to head to the ninth inning down four.
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Again in the ninth, the first two Anteater hitters were retired quickly, but the speed of
Luke Spillane helped him beat out infield single.
Jake Palmer came off the bench and drew a walk getting it back to the top of the order for
Nathan Church.
Church rattled his fourth hit of the game into center field to score a run to set the scene for
Mike Peabody to bat representing the tying run. On a 2-2 count, he got ahold of a ball out to center field, but for the second time in the game for Peabody, the ball fell feet short of clearing the fence as the final out was recorded.
FINAL SCORE: STANFORD 11, UC IRVINE 8
The 'Eaters' ninth trip to the NCAA Tournament ended in the regional round as the team reached the regional final for the seventh consecutive trip. UCI finishes their 2021 season with a record of 43-18; the 43 wins the sixth-most in program history, and the fourth-most as a Division I program.
Anteaters earned six of the 11 spots on the All-Regional Team over the weekend that is chosen by position including first baseman
Jacob Castro, third baseman
Connor McGuire, outfielders
Nathan Church and
Mike Peabody, designated hitter
Dillon Tatum, and starting pitcher
Michael Frias.
Some of the offensive stars included
Nathan Church who drove in four runs to give him 61 on the year, and his four hits make him the first Anteater in program history with 100 hits in a season. To top it off, he finishes near the top of the Anteater record books in a single season driving in 62 RBIs, tied for the second-most, in the second-most at-bats in program history, and finished with 24 doubles to tie Keston Hiura and Taylor Holiday for the most in a single season in addition to his sixth home run of the season tonight.
Luke Spillane also recorded three hits driving in a pair while
Dillon Tatum added two RBIs and two runs to go with his single-season record of 15 home runs.
Connor McGuire scored twice with two hits ending the season with a 14-game hit streak.
Mike Peabody also reached once on his career-record 51st hit by pitch that extended his on-base streak a personal high of 29 games.
The pitching began with
Michael Frias who dropped just his second game of the year allowing four runs and getting just one out. Ingebritson and Ibarra were tagged with five unearned runs between them over 4.1 innings, and Ibarra punched out five in his longest outing of the season.
Jacob King also tied for his longest outing adding four strikeouts in three innings.
Final Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"Firstly, congratulations to Stanford on going to the Super Regional and a hard-earned regional championship. I have a lot of respect for Coach Esquer and staff - Thomas Eager, Tommy Nicholson, Steve Rodriguez - so congratulations to those guys. Super Regional appearances aren't given away so this is a really good team that's going to be a tough out for anybody."
"I'm just really proud of our team. The seven-spot in the first inning makes it hard to come back from, but I think this game was kind of emblematic of our season, of our kids, just being able to play regardless of the circumstances. I think at 7:15 p.m. tonight, people wouldn't have thought that
Mike Peabody would be the tying run in the ninth inning with a chance to extend the game. I think that's just special. They're special, and we've seen that all year. You hate to lose and take the uniforms off, but Big West champions, 43 wins, really proud of our team."
"This season was kind of like this game, the circumstances don't impact them, they are what they are. They just play it and it's going to serve really well in life. That's what we've seen this year. We've never spoken about, and we won't, the challenges or difficulties or what we could do or couldn't do. We just play and how resilient the group has been to be able to move on from some really bad things and not have it impact us like the first inning tonight. We had to deal with a lot of really, really, really good success and not having that cause complacency. That's what makes this group so special."
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Nathan Church is one of the best players in the country. We said that the other day and he finished the season with 100 hits, almost 40 extra-base hits, this guy's in his first full year of college baseball. It's a broken record, but if you're watching this, these games, he's as good as there is in the country and his just continuing to get better."
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Dillon Tatum had a huge year for us. He set the school record tonight for a single season in home runs in maybe 120 at-bats, and dealing with a calf injury from last week didn't help him out, but you don't see many JC guys in their first year of Division I put up the type of numbers that he has."
