FULLERTON, Calif. --- The Anteaters set aside a rocky first inning to dominate the rest of the way topping Cal State Fullerton, 7-3, Friday night at Goodwin Field.
WORK TO DO
UC Irvine (32-23, 16-13) dug themselves a hole Friday after its Thursday performance was one to forget. UCI opened with a pair of runners in scoring position in the top of the first with just one out and managed to not come away with a run from that. The bottom of the inning was the other end of the spectrum with the first two outs recorded before consecutive hits followed by a home run put the hosts Cal State Fullerton (21-33, 13-16) on top, 3-0.
ARMED AND DANGEROUS
Once the dust settled from the first inning,
David Vizcaino returned to form for the next five innings. He hit a batter in the second inning and gave up a hit in the fifth, but that was all. No other baserunners even touched second base as the first-year Anteater retired 16 of his final 18 hitters including six by strikeout.
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Behind him was none other than
Gordon Ingebritson hot of four outs on nine pitches the night before. All Ingebritson did was get all nine hitters he faced on 34 pitches with six strikeouts of his own.
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HITTING HARD
All the pitching still needed the bats to come alive after no runs through the first 11 innings of the series and a lone run going into the sixth inning from a two-out walk and three consecutive wild pitches. With one out in the sixth, UCI would load the bases on a pair of hits and a walk and cut the score to 3-2 on a
Luke Spillane sacrifice fly.
Taishi Nakawake battled in an extended at-bat before lacing a double into the left field corner flipping the game and giving the Anteaters its first lead of the game at 4-3.
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FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 7, CAL STATE FULLERTON 3
UC Irvine added a fourth run in the sixth on a wild pitch and plated more insurance in the eighth again on a wild pitch and a bloop single from
Caden Kendle to fully support the pitching effort.
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Vizcaino stuck with it to improve to 5-0 on the season now with three of his six starts quality this year. Ingebritson locked up his third save going the final three innings and four now on his career. The third-year Anteater finishes his career with some video-game numbers with a 13-1 record, 107 strikeouts, and the sixth-lowest career ERA in program history at 2.65 surpassing legend Jerry Maras and equaling Wes Etheridge.
"Gordon was unbelievable," praised his head coach
Ben Orloff. "That will be the last outing of his career. That's the best relief-pitched season I've ever seen. From the most special, tough, competitive guy that's about all the right things. He needs to be on every first-team All-American ballot, he's in the mix for conference pitcher of the year from how often he's impacted winning, how often he's pitched, how many roles he's pitched in; if he's not first-team All-American they should get rid of it."
On top of all the gaudy numbers, Ingebritson will finish as the Big West's ERA leader at 1.76 registering as the fifth-lowest single-season ERA in UCI history. In Big West standards, he'll likely finish in the top 20 in innings and strikeouts with the most as a reliever at 66.2 IP and 62 strikeouts with 20 looking. He's also allowed opponents to hit .207 on the year, fifth-lowest in the conference.
The series will continue on Saturday with a 1:00 p.m. first pitch between
Cameron Wheeler and Fynn Chester.
Postgame Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"From David, you're watching that first inning you never would have thought we'd get six. He really settled in, started throwing the fastball down, had the slider working good, and ended up having a really, really good start. That was really good to see because that was teetering toward going south."
"I think there's a lot of different guys tonight - Fitzgerald on base three or four times, Taishi has the big double after striking out twice; there was a lot of production with two strikes. Last night's game was a story of not doing much with two strikes, they got three two-strike hits against Pinto that was the difference. We had a lot of production, hit by pitch, walks, hits with two strikes and helped score seven runs."
