HONOLULU, Hawai'i --- UC Irvine baseball bounced back Sunday with a 7-1 win in Les Murakami Stadium to take the road series victory against Hawai'i.
OMINOUS START
The first action of the game came in the second inning as Hawai'i (8-14, 2-4) batted with two outs. Kyson Donahue touched a 2-0 pitch and lifted it over and out to right field for the quick 1-0 Hawai'i lead. UCI starter
Danny Suarez threw one more pitch before being lifted with an arm injury leaving UCI to turn to their bullpen before making a full turn through the Rainbow Warrior batting order.
The Anteaters (15-8, 5-1) struggled with their bats getting three hits and putting three leadoff hitters on through the first six innings, but the duo of Cory Ronan and Blaze Koali'i Pontes had UCI's number holding onto the 1-0 lead through six.
THE SEVENTH INNING
Hawai'i brought in a new pitcher to start the seventh inning and started it off by hitting
Abraham Garcia-Pacheco. The 'Eaters would proceed to load the bases from another hit batsman and a single to bring up
Woody Hadeen. He shot an 0-2 pitch into left field to score one and get the 'Eaters on the board trailing 2-1 with one out.Â
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Nathan Church followed hitting a sharp ball through the right side, ruled an error, but still bringing home two more runners and giving UCI its first lead, 3-1.
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Controversy struck with the next batter
Thomas McCaffrey laying down the squeeze bunt that UH pitcher Cameron Hagan fielded and tossed to the plate.
Woody Hadeen slid around the tag to score for a 4-1 lead. The play was discussed, challenged, and reviewed with the call standing. The Bows would protest the ruling which was quickly followed by an ejection of Hawai'i head coach Rich Hill.
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After a lengthy delay,
Dub Gleed took his turn at plate and smacked a single into center to score two more to give UCI a six-run frame when all was said and done to lead 6-1.
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FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 7, HAWAI'I 1
Church put a cherry on top with a long solo home run in the ninth inning for the final score of 7-1. UCI totaled seven hits from seven different players, and needed just three hits in the seventh to score six.
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The real heroes on the afternoon were the Anteater pitching staff that saw five different arms come out of the bullpen and toss scoreless baseball for 7.1 innings.
Gordon Ingebritson pitched the brunt of it scattering three hits in 2.1 innings with one strikeout.
Nick Rincover,
Tanner Brooks, and
Jacob King all added a scoreless inning each with Brooks eventually earning the victory, his second of the weekend.
Troy Taylor dominated the final two innings striking out three and allowing a lone walk to close up shop on the win.
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The 'Eaters come away with a big series win at Hawai'i; their third straight series win on the island, and it keeps UCI tied atop the Big West with a 5-1 mark and 15-8 overall. Next up is another Big West series back in Anteater Ballpark hosting CSUN to begin the month of April.
Postgame Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"Their guy Pontes was throwing the ball really well out of the bullpen, and they went to Hagan who had struggled a little with his command coming in with 10 hit batters. We get it started with a hit by pitch, Castro takes a really good at-bat off the bench, they go to the bullpen and Fitzgerald gets hit, Woody with a two-strike hit, Church hit the ball really hard, we get down an ok safety squeeze that started a lot of other stuff, and Dub gets a big two-out hit so it was a bunch of good at-bats in a row for a really good inning."
"Bullpen has been great and its really why we have the record we do. Ingebritson really stabilized the game. Rincover got his three guys, Brooks was strong again and a big strikeout of Wong after the walk to Cabrera, King with a shutdown inning after scoring six, and they Troy Taylor is really good."
"You want to put yourself in position to win these series. We weren't good the last two nights and then we come out today and played really well. I thought we pitched it good, played good defense, swung the bats well even without getting hits early and this is a tough place to score, so really happy with how we finished the weekend and hope we can build off of it."
