RIVERSIDE, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball finished strong Sunday at Riverside Sports Complex topping UC Riverside, 12-3, for the weekend sweep on the road.
- UCI got the early edge with a run in the first aided by the sun scoring with two outs to lead, 1-0. The 'Eaters never trailed in the series and were tied for a total of two innings
- The 'Eaters put him room between them and the Highlanders with three runs in the second from RBI singles by Jo Oyama and Caden Kendle in addition to a Myles Smith sac fly
- In a 4-1 ballgame, the Anteaters countered with the next three runs on solo homers started by Dub Gleed and Thomas McCaffrey going the other way in the third and Jo Oyama adding one in the fifth to lead 7-1
- Brandon Luu held tough lasting five innings while the hosts added two runs in his final inning to draw within 7-3
- Ricky Ojeda was called up and shut down UCR through the sixth and seventh innings. In the eighth, UCR put a runner on third with nobody out before Ojeda got the first two outs on a strikeout and foulout before Ricky Tibbett came on to close out the inning without any damage
- UCI got some important insurance with a five-run ninth inning highlighted by a two-run Myles Smith single for the 12-3 advantage
- The offense put up double digit runs for a third straight game and a weekend-high 16 hits
- Smith ended the series with a four-hit day and three RBIs
- McCaffrey and Oyama each scored three times with a home run with McCaffrey driving in two on three hits and Oyama driving in three on two hits
- Brandon Luu did enough to improve to 5-0 and taking home his first win in a road start
- Ricky Ojeda got eight outs with five of them strikeouts without allowing a run
UCI stays tied atop the Big West with a record of 14-4 alongside UC Santa Barbara and CSUN, and rises to an overall record of 32-8. Coming up is one more road matchup Tuesday night at San Diego before returning to Anteater Ballpark for a three-game series vs. Cal Poly
Postgame Thoughts with Head Coach Ben Orloff
"It was a lot closer than the scoreboard shows after that ninth inning made it a little bit of a runaway. Ojeda was clutch, the game was 7-3, previous inning the tying run was in the on-deck circle, B-LuuÂ
was able to get through five and Ojeda was really good. He's been doing that once a weekend and was pretty clutch."
"It's hard to win here in Riverside as evidenced by our last couple of trips here. We're trying to play really good and keep it going and not getting tired of it, so to come here and win three times, and we played well two out of the three, it's a good springboard into next week for us."
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