IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball's Saturday matchup of the rivalry series started rocky, but the bullpen arms settled things down to capture an 8-6 win against Long Beach State in Anteater Ballpark.
- Most of the offense came early and often for both sides
- UCI jumped out to a 3-0 lead off a Jacob McCombs home run with two outs in the first inning
- The Dirtbags returned fire with a run on a double and then their own three-run homer to take the lead, 4-3
- UCI scored three more in the second inning on RBI singles from Zach Crandall and Anthony Martinez and a Chase Call sacrifice fly for good measure
- LBSU would even things up in the third getting their own sac fly and then a two-out solo home run knotted things up, 6-6
- The bullpens took over through the middle innings
- Riley Kelly was called upon for his longest outing as an Anteater going 4.2 innings and striking out five, and after allowing the tying runs, left with the lead in the sixth
- Owen Geiss for Long Beach State had the Anteaters through his first three innings, but UCI got a clutch pinch-hit double from Alonso Reyes to take the lead and ruin Geiss' perfect day in his fourth inning
- Ricky Ojeda and Max Martin held the lead down the final innings while UCI added an insurance run on a hit by pitch to take home an 8-6 win
- The defense came to play with sparkling plays all over. Felsch headed that side and added two hits, two runs, and an RBI, and Martinez matched him on the box score
- Kelly took home the win to go to 2-0 on the year with a hold for Ojeda and Martin earning his third save of the season
The series will be settled Sunday with a 1:00 p.m first pitch as the teams split the first two games of the weekend. UCI will throw
Trevor Hansen as LBSU is yet to determine their starter.
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