LONG BEACH, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball took game one of the Black & Blue Rivalry Series Friday night in Bohl Diamond at Blair Field, 18-3, over Long Beach State.
- A multitude of hitting stars began with the brightest of the night, Myles Smith, who had three hits, all for extra bases, drove in three, scored four, and had his second two-HR game of the year
- Smith's first home run kicked off a three-run fifth inning and put UCI up, 4-2
- His second home run followed Jo Oyama's three-run blast for the second back-to-back instance for UCI this year and put them ahead, 12-2
- Smith drove in his third run two innings later to make it a 13-3 lead on an RBI double
- Smith was joined by Oyama as 'Eaters with three-RBI games, and each also scored four runs
- Every Anteater starter had an RBI on the night including Chase Call and Dub Gleed who each had a two-run double and Anthony Martinez with RBIs from a groundout and a walk
- Woody Hadeen and Thomas McCaffrey had three-hit nights along with Smith as Hadeen scored three runs as part of a 17-hit attack
- All the while Nick Pinto was serving up his eighth quality start of the year striking out eight through seven innings pitched
- Pinto exorcised some demons as he had been winless in three starts vs. LBSU allowing 15 earned runs before his performance Friday
- Pinto picked up his 26th career win to move him into a tie with Andre Pallante and Glenn Swanson for sixth in program history
- He also moved past his coach, Daniel Bibona, in all-time innings now with 332.1 in his career
- The Anteater hit by pitch total added five more on Friday night to give them 140 on the year extended their program record and keeping first place in the NCAA
- The 18 runs are the most for either club in a single game in the history of this series, and the 15-run victory ties the largest margin of defeat that was set by the Anteaters in 1982
The series continues Saturday night with a 6:00 p.m. first pitch at LBSU.
Trevor Hansen takes the mound against left-hander Van Larson
Postgame Thoughts with head coach Ben Orloff
"The offense was good. We really try to emphasize how many times can we get three good at-bats in a row. It's kind of been lacking a little bit recently, and I think we did that maybe 6, 7, or 8 times in one game, and that leads to the crooked numbers and scoring in lots of innings."
"Pinto was really good, he had all three pitches working. He walked one, I think got 17 swings and misses in seven innings, so he was dominant."
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
