IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara traded offensive blows Saturday night at Anteater Ballpark with the Anteaters delivering the knockout in an 11-10 victory.

HEAVY ARTILLERY
On Salute to Heroes Night at the ballpark, the battle began as UC Santa Barbara (32-11, 20-3) getting right to work getting their first two runners on base and scoring them on a wild pitch and sacrifice fly for a 2-0 lead after one half inning.

UCI (26-18, 11-9) countered right back loading the bases in the first three hitters. Dub Gleed got things back even with a two-run single as the game began 2-2 after one inning.

Both teams continued to the light up the scoreboard with UCI making the next move in the second on Nathan Church's two-run single to go up 4-2. UCSB tied it up at 4-4, but the 'Eaters took the lead back on Luke Spillane's RBI single in the third.

The lead switch sides in either end of the fourth inning; first by the Gauchos belting a two-out, two-run home run for a second straight inning to go up, 6-5. The Anteaters bunched together three hits in their half of the fourth getting RBI hits by Gleed and Abraham Garcia-Pacheco to grab the lead back, 7-6.

THE SIXTH INNING
After a fifth inning where there were no runs scored, the game remained at 7-6 until another two-out base hit knotted everything at 7-7. The Anteater side of the seventh opened with drama on the very first pitch with Woody Hadeen reaching base before the first of many pitching changes.

Michael Rice had began his fourth inning of work before being lifted after one pitch for lefty Hayden Hattenbach who did his job and got Nathan Church as his only batter. Elliot Gallegos was the next in line, and he would surrender a jam-shot single to Dub Gleed and get to a 3-2 count on Garcia-Pacheco before exiting mid-at-bat for Sam Whiting. His first pitch pegged Garcia-Pacheco to load the bases for pinch-hitter Myles Smith. Four balls later, he earned the free pass to first base to force in the go-ahead run to make it 8-7. Another pitcher and another bases loaded walk extended the lead to 9-7 before Taishi Nakawake served up a crushing blow with a single for just the second hit of the inning plating two more runs to open up the game's biggest lead to 11-7.

"Obviously it was a pretty big situation with the bases loaded," Nakawake said of the moment in the sixth, "and honestly I was just trying to get something I can hit out over the plate and put the ball in play."

FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 11, #25 UC SANTA BARBARA 10
The Gauchos made things interesting swatting four consecutive hits in the eighth inning to bring the game within one, but Troy Taylor squashed the rally with the lead intact, and navigated through the ninth inning stranding the tying run in scoring position with a groundball to Nakawake to end the game three hours and 44 minutes later an Anteater victory.

"Our bullpen is awesome. I did my thing, but overall we're awesome," Taylor spoke one everyone involved on the night. Taylor picked up his sixth save in a game that saw the bullpen work eight of the innings. Gordon Ingebritson notched another win to go to 6-0 as Cooper Robinson lasted just one inning as he made his first career start Saturday. "We had to have a longer game out of the pen today, but our guys are freaking great, and everybody did their part and we came out with a win. And when the offense hits, we need to pitch it on the mound. They got it going and we did our thing."

The offense spread the love around with 10 hits from eight different players led by Gleed with three hits including a double. He also drove in three and scored twice reaching in four plate appearances, and he was one of four Anteaters to cross home multiple times and was joined by Church, Spillane, and Nakawake who each had two-RBI games. One Woody Hadeen did not earn a hit, but reached three times and put down one of two UC Irvine sacrifice hits.

The game featured three times in the first, third, and sixth innings, and the lead swung between the sides three times as well, all within the first four innings. UCI also takes the all-time series lead back at 61-60 while earning their 88th all-time win against a ranked opponent. Most importantly, UC Irvine keeps its Big West title hopes alive as faint as they may be still trailing the Gauchos by 7.5 games in the Big West standings.

The series wraps up Sunday with Cameron Wheeler on the mound against Ryan Gallagher for a 1:00 p.m. start on Mother's Day.

Postgame Thoughts with head coach Ben Orloff
"I think it was a team win and it took everybody. Piecing that thing together really from pitch one on the mound, and then offensively to have to play for nine innings. It was good, and the relentlessness to play nine innings, making big pitches when we had to; I think we pitched better than the numbers show because we stretched everybody that we used today. I think they competed well though - punching out 14 guys, walking four while they walked more, so a really good team win."

"Offensively, the goal for us is to be able to win every type of game. We came up short last night and we have to be able to win a close, low-scoring game, and tonight we did enough to win a close, "scoring" game. Yeah, it takes contributions from a lot of different guys to score 11 runs. You don't score 11 because one guy has a big night. Taishi's two-out, full-count hit there was a big hit that we've been searching for a large part of the season."

"I thought all of our pitchers competed well. Aside from Troy, they all probably came into the game earlier than they're used to, and they never let the game go sideways. They kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win. For the most part, we stayed away from the big inning, and those guys did well on a night like tonight that wasn't going to end 3-2."