IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball's final midweek game of 2022 was a dominant victory over No. 23 UCLA, 8-1, Tuesday night in front of 1,580 fans at Anteater Ballpark.

THE BRIGHT LIGHTS
The season-high crowd packed Anteater Ballpark with the high-profile No. 23 UCLA Bruins (33-19, 17-10) in town to finish the home-and-home series. Andre Antone took the mound for just his second career start, and after giving up a leadoff single to former Anteater Jake Palmer, quickly erased the baserunner with a double play ball and followed that up by setting down seven in a row.

The bats backed him up with two early runs. A Caden Kendle single started off UCI's (29-21, 13-11) first inning, and with two on and one out, he came around on Dub Gleed's flare single with UCI plating two in the inning for a 2-0 lead.

BRICK BY BRICK
With the early advantage and the lively atmosphere, the Anteaters took advantage scoring consistently with runs in six of eight innings on the night.

They were gifted a bases loaded scenario in the third inning pushing one across on a double play ball to make it 3-1. After the Bruins got a run in the fourth, UCI answered right back bringing Kendle home again after a one-out double and a cue-shot single by Nathan Church to make it 4-1 after four.

The highlight of the night came from one of three bunts as Kendle's sacrifice set the table for Woody Hadeen who laid down the perfect suicide squeeze play to plate the oncoming Taishi Nakawake for a 5-1 lead after six.

The crushing blow was more bases loaded execution as Luke Spillane muscled the third hit of the inning into center field to score two for a 7-1 advantage.

FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 8, #23 UCLA 1
The win gives UCI a guaranteed winning season for the 19th time in the last 21 seasons with win No. 29 on the season. It also meant a season sweep for UCI over the Bruins for just the second time in the last 18 seasons joining the 2017 squad.

UCI's win gives them a 5-2 mark against the Pac-12 in 2022, and improves UCI's record against the conference since head coach Ben Orloff took over to .594.

The Bruins were also ranked No. 23 in the nation meaning both wins over UCLA came while they were ranked in 2022. UCI finishes the 2022 campaign with a 4-4 mark against ranked opponents while securing its 89th win all-time against a ranked squad, 26th against a ranked Pac-12 foe, and puts them at 39-36 against ranked programs when they come to Anteater Ballpark.

The 1,580 fans to visit Anteater Ballpark Tuesday night marks the largest crowd since 2015 at the park. For UCI, its the 77th time in Anteater Ballpark history to reach 1,000 in attendance and 27th time with as many as 1,500 fans.

Again the offensive stars featured Kendle and Church who each had three-hit nights and reached four times. Both also scored two runs joined by Dub Gleed who had two hits and drove in a run as he remains tied atop the team RBI lead with Church. Spillane led the squad with two RBIs as UCI had five different hitters drive someone in. The bats also terrorized UCLA in other ways with three steals, three sacrifice bunts, and reached four times in hit by pitches with two runners scoring on them.

Antone's pitching paced the Anteater staff as he earned his second win of the season to go to 3-0 in this career after one run over 3.2 innings. The #And1Boyz picked him up as well shutting out the Bruins down the final 5.1 innings including Tanner Brooks stranding a runner of Antone's he inherited. He and Gordon Ingebritson earned holds, and between that pair, Troy Taylor, and Jacob King, each struck out multiple batters while scattering four hits and two walks to preserve the victory taking UCI to 9-2 on the season in midweek matchups.

The homestand continues with three final contests at Anteater Ballpark starting Friday, May 20, at 6:00 p.m. against CSU Bakersfield as they come to town.

Postgame Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"It was a really complete win and it started with Antone on the mound. He did what he did last Tuesday - 3.2 IP, one run, gets us deeper in the game where we had a chance to piece it togheter with Brooks and Gordon and Troy and King. You do one run on a Tuesday and strike them out 11 times walking them twice, can't pitch much better than that. And the defense was really good; Woody made a good play early in the game, Dub made a good play on the backhand. We get 11 hits, every guy reaches, a bunch of two-out hits, three stolen bases, a couple sac bunts, it was a really good game by us."

"It's great seeing people here, and we wish that this would be more of the norm. I think that it's a great product that's on the field, and a team that people would be proud to watch and enjoy watching. The environment is great, great to see that many people in the stands and play well in front of them against a really good team that will play beyond Memorial Day."

"It's all about our consistency. We can be really good, but it's just how consistent can this type of performance show up and have it be a complete, nine-inning performance from all phases because you have the players to be really good so hopefully it leads into the weekend."