IRVINE, Calif. --- UCI baseball managed another win Saturday night to clinch the weekend series against Grand Canyon, 4-2, at Anteater Ballpark.

ONE-HIT WONDERS
The early portion of the game looked to favor Grand Canyon (2-4) who had three runners in scoring position in the first two innings, but Nick Pinto held the line stranding all of them. The Lopes managed five hits against Pinto in the first five innings, but he scattered them well.

The Anteaters (4-2) on the other hand were stymied by GCU starter Carter Young for the most part only getting a single hit against him. The hit was a huge one off the bat of Connor McGuire to lead off the third inning. He scampered to third base reading the ball in the dirt and would score on Luke Spillane's ground ball to give the first lead to UCI, 1-0.

THE SEVENTH INNING
Both starters worked masterful stuff into and through the sixth inning. Young was done in on a double that never left the infield that was misplayed by the Lopes defense. Pinto allowed a bloop single in the seventh before getting the hook to give way to Jake Spillane. He was unable to get any of his three hitters allowing his inherited baserunner to score and leaving the bases loaded for reliever Michael Stanford. Like Spillane, Stanford also walked home a run to relinquish the lead, but finished the inning to put the 'Eaters back by just a run, 2-1.

The bottom half of the inning started with a bang for the Anteaters who had just one hit entering it; they proceeded to club consecutive singles through the right side of talented freshman reliever Daniel Avitia by Ben Fitzgerald and Justin Torres. A sacrifice moved them to scoring position, and then it was Spillane again battling through an at-bat and getting Fitzgerald home on another grounder for a 2-2 tie. The go-ahead run came home without even a batted ball as Taishi Nakawake squared to bunt, but pulled it back and caught catcher Tyler Wilson off guard letting the pitching careen off him and away for Torres to scoot home and take back the lead, 3-2.

FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 4, GRAND CANYON 2
The Anteaters would add a big insurance run in the eighth as Nathan Church singled and scored later on Thomas McCaffrey's booming RBI double.

The bullpen found its way as Stanford worked another effective 2/3 of an inning before giving Jacob King a shot. He entered with the tying run on base and stranding him as he got the dangerous hitter Elijah Buries to groundout. A relatively quiet ninth inning led to his second save of the year and the 4-2 final.

All six Anteater games this year have seen both teams hold the lead at some point with tonight's game being the third in which the first team to score gave up the lead and got it back to win.

Offensively, UCI's nearly equaled its line score from a night ago with seven hits this time. Church had the only two-hit game while Spillane had two RBIs and a steal after no runs batted in coming into the game.

Pinto and Young each did not factor into the decision despite one run allowed for each over 6.1 and 5.1 innings, respectively. Stanford took the win for the Anteaters, the second of his career, and King's save is the 10th of his career.

"I come in and I just want to be able to execute pitches. The runner out there doesn't really faze me, you treat it as if nobody's on and don't let the pressure get to you," noted Jacob King after his bounceback performance. He and the bullpen have been key to the 'Eaters three victories this week. "In the bullpen, we call ourselves the "And-1 Boys"."

The series comes to an end Sunday with a 1:00 p.m. first pitch. Freshman Danny Suarez is back on the mound to oppose right-hander Hunter Omlid.

Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"We pitched the ball really well. Outside of a couple spots, Pinto worked out of jams again, Stanford made some huge pitches, King comes in with a guy on second base and their best guy to groundout made for a really good night. There wasn't a lot of offense for us, but we felt like we took good at-bats when we needed to."

"When it's like this, it's hard to score here at night. When they're pitching a good game, we have to be opportunistic, and I think we had a couple good at-bats in a row, get down a bunt, good base running, and come up on the good side of the score."

"Pinto was really good. He pitched out of jams early in the game. He commanded that curveball really well. he competed and got us deep into the game, and it was a good start."