IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball left no doubt Sunday for a big home win over Kansas State to end the series at Anteater Ballpark, 7-1.
Michael Stanford made his second straight Sunday start and set the tone with a 1-2-3 first inning. He picked up six strikeouts including striking out the side in the third inning and pitching into the seventh shutting out the high-powered Wildcat offense along the way.
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The offense fed off the veteran getting on the board first. In the second inning,
Dub Gleed pounded a ball over the left-center fence for a two-run homer and 2-0 lead. Gleed came up a second time in the fourth inning with UCI (23-13, 7-8) up 3-0 and popped a ball deep down the left field line and fair for his second home run in as many at-bats for a 4-0 lead.
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Anthony Martinez kept the home run trend alive with a shot to right-center in the fifth inning growing the lead to 6-0.
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Kansas State (26-16, 9-6) saw a chance to get back in the game in the seventh getting Stanford out of the game after a leadoff walk. K-State loaded the bases and forced home their first run on an infield single and looked for more trailing 6-1 with the bases loaded and still nobody out.
Finnegan Wall entered to save the day striking out the first two hitters he faced, and getting spectacular defense for the final out from
Jo Oyama laying out in foul ground and stranding all three runners.
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The bats clapped right back with four hits in the bottom of the inning to push the game back to a 7-1 lead and help nail down the Sunday victory.
Stanford's outing marked the second quality start for an 'Eater on the year posting his second straight win as a weekend starter. His six strikeouts matched his career high while topping this Anteater high in innings and pitches to improve to a 3-2 record. Wall's huge performance earned him a hold going 1.2 scoreless innings.
Jacob King locked down the final four outs earning strikeouts on three of them on the mound.
"Coach has been talking about all weekend and all year just toughness and competitiveness," noted the fiery starter. "Starting the game off with a lot of that can kind of shut them down a little bit, especially when you get it rolling, and I've got the best defense in the country behind me honestly. We had a bad taste in our mouth from Friday and Saturday so we had to come out and do what we had to to get it done."
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"That's two weeks that Finn has been huge coming in out of the bullpen with bases loaded and just getting it done. A lot of credit to him and then King coming in and dominating. Our pen has been so good, all it takes is a couple good innings in the beginning and we're rolling."
Dub Gleed's two-HR game came on the one-year anniversary of
Thomas McCaffrey and
Ben Fitzgerald posting the last two-HR games for the program at Kansas State.
"My first at-bat I saw them start Bam off with a curveball so I thought the would try and sneak a fastball by and I put a good swing on it," the sophomore shortstop detailed about his first career multi-homer day. "My second at-bat I got myself in a good position, took a few good sliders, and then got a good 3-1 hitter's count and didn't miss."
Martinez's HR put him back on top of the team with eight this year as he and Gleed each had three-hit games. Gleed's three-RBI day led all players, and he along with
Caden Kendle each scored twice.
The 'Eaters continue to have success in the non-conference with a 16-5 mark to this point with four midweek matchups out of conference to go. Next up will be Tuesday night at San Diego State for the first matchup between them this year and second game at Tony Gwynn Stadium for the Anteaters.
