CORVALLIS, Ore. --- UC Irvine baseball dropped the opener of its series at No. 13 Oregon State, 7-2, at Goss Stadium Friday night.
NO LEAD SAFE
UC Irvine (5-4) jumped out to the early lead helped by a pair of hits to leadoff by
Woody Hadeen and
Nathan Church.
Ben Fitzgerald got Hadeen home on a grounder for a 1-0 lead.
Like six of the 'Eaters' eight games this year, both teams had the lead in the game, and Oregon State (8-0) took the lead right back in the bottom of the first. Justin Boyd got into one leaving the park in left-center to go up 2-1 after one.
Michael Frias did manage to strikeout the side on the mound.
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SLOW DEMOLITION
The Beavers continued to slowly add to their advantage throughout the game. Two runs came home in the third inning from a Boyd sacrifice fly and an one-out RBI single to put OSU up 4-1.
Abraham Garcia-Pacheco and
Connor McGuire started a little two-out rally of their own in the fourth with McGuire doubling him home after a two-out single to make it 4-2, but UCI hitters had trouble starting anything else striking out 17 times on the night.
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The Beavers continued to chip away at the Anteater bullpen with two more runs in the seventh and a seventh run in the eighth to finish off their victory, 7-2.
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FINAL SCORE: #13 OREGON STATE 7, UC IRVINE 2
The Anteater strikeout woes were the second-most in a game in program history at 17. The 'Eaters went down 18 times against USD in 2017. This isn't unprecedented as OSU punched out the 'Eaters 15 times twice in the 2021 series.
Anteater pitching managed to add up some strikeouts as well fanning 10 Beavers and catching four of those looking. Frias had seven of those in just 4.2 innings while drawing his first loss of 2022. Four 'Eaters came on in relief with scoreless action from
Andre Antone and by
Nick Rincover making his UCI and Division I debut adding his first career strikeout.
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UCI's offense had seven hits including two-hit games from Hadeen and Church. Hadeen also scored and stole a base. McGuire's RBI gives him eight on the year to lead the team.
The all-time series tightens up with UCI up 5-4 overall and 3-2 now at Goss Stadium.
The series rolls on Saturday with a 1:35 p.m. start time.
Nick Pinto and Jacob Kmatz will duel on the mound, and fans can watch on Pac-12.com and listen on KUCI 88.9 FM.
Thoughts from Head Coach Ben Orloff
"We've got to figure out how to get better to beat good teams. We can't punch 17 times and think that we can beat anybody that's any good. We've got to get better."
"Frias really competed and threw the ball well for the most part and gave us a chance to win. I like those first two at-bats that gave us a lot to start off with against a good Friday night guy."
"Rincover pitched well and punched out one of the best players in Jacob Melton in this part of the country. We don't have a lot of left-handed options out of the bullpen, and these guys played 5-6-7- lefties out of the lineup most nights so we'll probably see him again this weekend at some point."
