MIDWEEK
#18Â UC Irvine Anteaters (11-4, 2-1 Big West) at UCLA Bruins (12-4, 2-1 Big Ten)
Jackie Robinson Stadium (1,828) - Los Angeles, Calif.
Tuesday - 6:00 PM |
B1G+Â |
Live Stats
PITCHING PROBABLES
Tuesday: UCI RHP
Ryan Kysar vs. UCLA RHP Wylan Moss
THE SERIES
#18Â UC Irvine Anteaters (11-5, 2-1 Big West) at CSUN Matadors (2-11, 0-3 Big West)
Robert J. Hiegert Field (1,200) - Northridge, Calif.
Friday - 5:30 PM |
ESPN+ |Â
Live Stats
Saturday - 4:30 PM |Â
Live Stats
Sunday - 1:00 PM |
ESPN+ |
Live Stats
PITCHING PROBABLES
Friday: UCI RHP
Riley Kelly vs. CSUN RHP Ryan Halamicek
Saturday: UCI RHP
Trevor Hansen vs. CSUN RHP Trevor RInehart
Sunday: UCI TBD vs. CSUN TBD
Game Notes
AROUND THE HORN
19 -Â UCI heads out on the road for 8 straight, away from home for
19 days, and will play 14 of their next 18 games away from Anteater Ballpark
11 -Â The Anteaters are a triple machine with
11 through 15 games, 2nd in the NCAA, all coming from McCombs, Yeaman, Fjelstad, and Call
25 -Â UC Irvine's career home run record stands at
25 with two 'Eaters within reach:
Chase Call - 23,
Anthony Martinez - 21
53 -Â
Will Bermudez set a UCI career record for HBP record on February 26, currently with
53. The team was hit 175 times in 2024 setting an NCAA record
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LEADING OFF
+ UC Irvine is among the nationally ranked after four weeks in 2025 with Baseball America moving them up from 24th in their preseason poll to now 18th. UCI remained in the national polls the entire 2024 season finishing in the top 25 in all five major polls.
+ UC Irvine has run through a gauntlet with a road series win over the Big XII's Texas Tech, a neutral site win over No. 24 Nebraska, and losses to 6-1 USC and No. 16 Vanderbilt by one on a neutral site.
+ The Anteater offense continues to roll scoring eight or more runs in every game so far in March and averaging 9.4 runs a game this season:
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Anthony Martinez looked near full strength after missing the first eight games of the season with injury, and came home with Big West Field Player of the Week honors. It's the second honor for UCI this year joining
Jacob McCombs on February 24, and the third for Martinez, first since his freshman season. He led the squad with seven hits, nine RBIs, and belted his first home run of 2025. In his seven games since returning, he has an RBI in each including four Sunday as stands fourth in UCI history in RBIs
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Jacob McCombs was finally stopped Sunday snapping a 14-game hit streak to start his Anteater career. He still hit .400 to lead the team and is now hitting .422 on the season adding a home run and his eighth and ninth doubles back on Tuesday
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Alonso Reyes saw minimal time recovering from a broken nose, but came up in a big spot Saturday pinch-hitting against his old mates knocking an RBI double for the game-deciding run
ÞÂ UCI continues to reach base by any means necessary doing it 31 times last week including 17 times hit by pitch. Six Anteater regular had an on-base percentage over .400 last week
ÞÂ The Anteaters have had an abundance of triples this year with 11 in the early going, all from McCombs,
Colin Yeaman,
Chase Call, and
Zach Fjelstad. Three times this year, UCI has had a three-RBI triple including twice last week by Fjelstad and Yeaman
+ UC Irvine's pitching staff finished the week with a 4.50 ERA with the bullpen allowing just six earned runs over 22.1 innings:
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Trevor Hansen had the best performance of his Anteater career with career highs of nine strikeouts and seven innings allowing two hits against LBSU to improve to 2-0 on the year
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Ryan Kysar went back to his old stomping grounds at USD and threw four shutout frames and matching a career high of seven strikeouts against his old mates
ÞÂ UCI's bullpen was impressive in all four games.
Riley Kelly had the longest outing of his UCI career at 4.2 innings striking out five for the win Saturday. The crew of
Ryder Brooks,
David Butler,
Jaxton Andeel, and
Ricky Ojeda did not allow an earned run over 13.2 combined innings hanging 15 strikeouts among them
+ The Anteaters have put up some nationally recognized stats through the season's first 15 games:
ÞÂ Anteater offense has been paced by McCombs notably in the top 10 in the NCAA in total bases (7th) and doubles (9th). He also stands 16th in hits, 22nd in slugging, and 24th in HBP.
ÞÂ As a team, UCI's offense touts top marks nationally in triples (T1st), runs per game (19th), on-base percentage (27th), hits (40th), and slugging (44th) while leading the Big West in each
ÞÂ Other notable Big West leaders include
Chase Call whose atop in runs scored and runs per game, and
Rowan Felsch in walks drawn per game
ÞÂ UCI set the NCAA record last year with 175 hit by pitch. They have 52 so far this year which is second in the NCAA with eight from McCombs. UCI is averaging 3.47 per game and are on pace to break their own record by the end of the regular season
ÞÂ Pitching leaders start with
Max Martin tied for the Big West lead in saves and
David Butler the same in pitching appearances and fourth nationally. As a staff, UCI strikes out 10.3 hitters a game, second in Big West and 46th nationally, and sit top 80 in K-to-BB ratio and WHIP.
+ Big West play began with the 'Eaters winning two of three against rival Long Beach State. UC Irvine is projected to finish second in the Big West Preseason Poll receiving two first-place votes. On the 11-player All-Big West Team,
Anthony Martinez and
Ricky Ojeda represent the 'Eaters. The Big West is rated 10th among conferences with an overall 74-61 record and four 10-win programs
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SCOUTING THE BRUINS
UCLA is back atop their game under head coach John Savage. The Bruins were under .500 winning 19 games last season, and have started 2025 at 12-4 with a series sweep of Cal Poly, have picked up wins against BYU, Michigan State, Washington State, Michigan, Arizona State, UConn, and USC while losing to Vanderbilt in there, and are fresh off a cross-country trip winning two of three at Maryland to start Big Ten play.
The Bruins and Anteaters play for the 99th time on Tuesday with UCLA holding the overall edge, 57-40-1, but UCI has won the last seven in the series. Two of those wins have come against ranked Bruin squads, and last year they added a win in Dodger Stadium. The most recent trip featured a dramatic, ninth-inning,
Chase Call three-run home run against his brother's team for the 9-7 UCI win
The offense is getting it done hitting .281 as a team and keeping pace with UCI on the scoring with the exact same number of runs scored in one more game played. Sophomore Roch Cholowsky heads the bats with a .327 average and 24 RBIs. He had a two-HR game in the last meeting at UCLA, and has six so far this year as does Mulivai Levu whose added 22 RBIs. Chase's brother Phoenix is having a fine sophomore season with 16 hits and 13 RBIs to this point
Pitching is typically where coach Savage's teams make their hay and no different in 2025. A 4.40 ERA is helped mostly by the weekend rotation, but arms like Luke Rodriguez (2.18, 16 IP, 14 K), Justin Lee (2-0, 7.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 7 K), and Jack O'Connor (1-0, 1.17) lead a solid staff in relief. Wylan Moss gets the ball Tuesday making his fourth start. He's racked up the strikeouts with 24 in just 15.2 innings, and completed as many as four innings twice in start while saving two games for the Bruins in an impressive beginning to his freshman campaign. Behind the pitching ranks the 15th-best defense in the NCAA to this point posing another formidable portion of the UCLA attack.
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SCOUTING THE MATADORSCSUN brings in the Anteaters for UCI's first road trip of Big West season. The Matadors have had a brutal open to the season with a 2-10 record. They took single wins in a road series at Santa Clara and home vs. BYU before getting swept at No. 16 Oklahoma, and then to begin Big West play, three late road losses to UC Santa Barbara with two from walk-offs.
The Matadors and 'Eaters battled last season in the regular season finale with UCI taking 2 of 3 at home, and now UCI heads to a tough place to play at Northridge where UCI hasn't won a series since 2018. All-time, UCI leads 54-39 in the series, but is just 21-24 at CSUN. The Matadors are much better than their early-season record coming off a 30-win season in 2024 and finished above .500 in Big West action. CSUN also has a new feature added this year with lights allowing them to play evenings games for the first time with Friday first pitch at 5:30 p.m. and Saturday now at 4:30 p.m.
The offense has been held back early on hitting .219 with 4.8 runs per game, but they went toe-to-toe with the Gauchos scoring 21 times against their vaunted pitching. Freshman Andrew Becker's .414 average stands out along with the 13 hits of Roberto Gonzalez, and second-years Kyle Panganiban (HR, 7 RBI) and Matthew Pena (2 HR, 10 RBI) bring the pop in a field that plays to offenses
Pitching looks to improve with a 7.80 ERA, 1.85 WHIP, and walking 5.66 batters a game, all at the bottom of the Big West rankings. Ryan Halamicek is solid on Fridays for the Matadors coming off an eight-strikeout quality start vs. UCSB. The rotation fills out with junior Noah Rinehart (0-1, 7.53) and redshirt junior Diego Gutierrez (1-1, 18 IP, 16 K) with bullpen names like Gabriel Hernandez (11 IP, 2.45, 14 K) who shut down UCSB into extra innings, Logan Miller and Max Mendes averaging more than a strikeout an inning, and Hayden Hall ready to close things out. The defense has fared well behind the Matadors as well.
