RIVERSIDE, Calif. --- Another one-sided Anteater win came Saturday night with UCI topping UC Riverside, 14-4, at Riverside Sports Complex behind David Vizcaino's pitching and a barrage of offense.

HOME COOKING
Making his first career weekend start was David Vizcaino making the leap from midweek starter where he's been flawless including a two-hit performance over seven innings last week over USD. This time, he headed out on the road to Riverside near where he's from as a Chino, Calif. native and returning near to Riverside City College where he spent his freshman season.

Vizcaino duplicated his excellence from his previous start in the form of 86 pitches over a season-high for any Anteater pitcher, eight innings, and again just two hits allowed.

"He's been great, similar to Tuesday night," head coach Ben Orloff noted. "Filled up the strike zone, threw the slider for a strike, no three-ball counts, no runs, no walks; he's pitching really good right now."

His no-hitter and perfect game didn't last into the fifth and sixth innings like last Tuesday, but instead ended in the second inning on a Taylor Juline single. The next 17 hitters he would retire until a one-out single in the eighth broke the string of outs as no Highlander even reached second base under his watch.

"He's throwing 89-91, but I think his fastball plays up and guys don't get good swings on the fastball. He's in the zone a lot with it, slider is pretty good, he just throws strikes, he's big; it's really fun to watch right now."

BIG INNINGS
The offense once again took off from the first inning. The first hitter of the game battled despite a strikeout through a 12-pitch at-bat, but one batter later, the Anteaters (28-20, 13-10) had a lead as Woody Hadeen parked his first career home run just down the road from his hometown for a 1-0 lead. The bats kept the momentum scoring two more times in the inning, and they were off and running up, 3-0.

The bats quieted a little before awaking in the fourth on another home run, this time by Caden Kendle launching a solo drive to make it 4-0. The next hitters would add with hits and come around as Dub Gleed would lift a sacrifice fly, Abraham Garcia-Pacheco would single another run home, and eventually score on Myles Smith's double for a four-run inning to build the lead to 7-0.

The crushing blow came in the seventh inning with a six-spot for the 'Eaters. The first three hitters of the inning all singled capped by Luke Spillane's RBI single for the eighth run of the night. After a popout, consecutive Anteaters were hit by pitch to load and then force in the ninth run. Finally, Nathan Church cleared the bases with a skied fly ball to right-center clearing the wall for his first career grand slam and putting the icing on the win.

FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 14, UC RIVERSIDE 4
UCI added a 14th run in the eighth inning on an infield single, and then UC Riverside (7-39, 3-23) put up a fight against reliever Finnegan Wall scoring four times with five of their seven hits on the night to avoid the shutout.

Vizcaino earned his stripes with another dominant, two-hit performance to improve to 4-0 in just his seventh career appearance. He faced two batters over the minimum on just 86 pitches adding four strikeouts and dropping his season ERA to an even 1.00.

UCI's offensive start in the 18-hit affair was Nathan Church who put up his second five-hit game of the season, and with his four RBIs he now has seven on the weekend and surpassed 100 for his career on his grand slam. He wasn't alone in the home run department with Kendle launching his fifth and Woody Hadeen earning his first while registering three hits and three runs. Four other Anteaters had two-hit nights and four also had two-RBI nights including Garcia-Pacheco, Smith, and Spillane each doing both.

"It was a really good offensive night. A bunch of different guys from Kendle with a big home run, Hadeen with a big night, Church with a big night, Bam hit some balls hard and didn't get a ton to show for it, but some big at-bats with runners in scoring position, Myles with two hits and a walk; it's fun when you get that many guys contributing, and I think it's really good to see with the score what it was that we were still doing things right."

The series win for UCI is its first overall and in Big West play since their April win at UC San Diego ending a string of four straight overall and three straight conference series losses. The series continues Sunday finishing with a 1:00 p.m. first pitch between Cameron Wheeler and Tucker Juline. UCI will look for just its second sweep of the season in any series.