FULLERTON, Calif. --- The regular season concludes for UC Irvine baseball with a 9-3 loss to Call State Fullerton at Goodwin Field Saturday afternoon.
TITANIC BLASTS
Cal State Fullerton (22-33, 14-16) again put the Anteaters in an early hole and again in the middle of it was Brendan Bobo. First was Austin Schell who followed a one-out single with a home run to left field for a 2-0 CSF lead. Bobo came up two batters later also with a runner on base delivered a home run for the second time in as many games in the first inning growing their lead to 4-0.
Bobo returned in the third inning with a second home run on the afternoon to deep right-center to make it a 5-0 game. With a 6-0 lead heading into the sixth, he shot a two-out single to right field off the glove of a diving
Justin Torres to drive in his four run of the game on make it a 7-0 lead.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
UC Irvine (32-24, 16-14) could not find any offense against Fynn Chester, last week's Big West Pitcher of the Week, with just three hits through six innings. The Anteater bench made the most noise starting from
Connor McGuire with a single back up the middle in the seventh. In the eighth, a
Ben Fitzgerald triple boomed off the center field wall, and following him was
Chase Call off the bench crushing a double into the gap to put the Anteaters on the board.
Â
The duo was back at it in the ninth after
Nathan Church flipped a two-strike single into left field and McGuire mashed a home run up and out to left-center to draw CSF to within 9-3. Call came up following a Fitzgerald walk to smash a single into left field to extend the afternoon before the final out of the game, a popup by
Taishi Nakawake.
FINAL SCORE: CAL STATE FULLERTON 9, UC IRVINE 3
The loss put UCI at 16-14 in Big West play finishing sixth in the standings, and overall end up 32-24, the 19th winning season in 21 seasons since returning in 2002.
McGuire and Call finished 2-for-2 each off the bench with McGuire homering for the second time this season and Call ending his freshman year hitting .500 going 3-for-6 with his first career double and RBI Saturday.
Eight Anteater pitchers threw on Saturday with three tossing scoreless innings.
Tanner Brooks did so in the in the fourth,
Michael Stanford, making his first appearance since April 5th, tossed the only 1-2-3 inning of the game, and
Troy Taylor, after loading the bases on singles in the seventh, struck out the next batter and induced a double play to get out of the jam.
Postgame Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"It was great for some of the guys to either finish their season, finish their career. Michael Stanford pitched a 1-2-3 inning after not pitching for a while from an injury, Fitzgerald his last two at-bats he hits one off the top of the wall and draws a walk, McGuire ends his year with a home run, Church in his last at-bat gets a two-strike base hit, those were some bright spots on the day."
"It's hard when it ends. We've had times when it hasn't ended this week, but it's hard any time it ends. It's emotional and a tough day to play, not being able to look forward to next week, and some of these guys it's the last time they'll play ever or play here or play as this group. It's always an emotional day to play."
