DAVIS, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball earned a win Friday night at Dobbins Stadium topping a tough UC Davis squad, 4-1.

• Shades of last year's opener against the Aggies, the pitching matchup took center stage as Riley Kelly and Bryan Green threw up zeroes
  • Kelly had his longest career outing going six complete innings on 89 pitches
  • He mostly diced up the Aggie lineup getting through a third-inning jam where he stranded two after two-out singles
  • The fifth inning saw a leadoff single get to third base with one out, and Kelly made the pitches to keep him from crossing home
  • Kelly's counterpart, Bryan Green, pitched into the eighth inning without allowing a run much like his 2024 start where he went seven shutout innings in Irvine
• The Anteater bats were frustrated all night knocking 13 hits including 10 in the first six innings without a run
  • UCI had runners on the corners with nobody out in the first inning and were thwarted by a line drive double play
  • The 'Eaters had three hits in the third, but a double play in the midst of it kept anyone from scoring
  • The 'Eaters left bases loaded in the fourth inning, had a runner thrown out at third in the fifth inning, and another double play cut down a sixth-inning rally
• With the game still deadlocked in the eighth inning, Jacob McCombs stepped up with a man on and two outs and hammered an emphatic home run to take a 2-0 lead
• Ricky Ojeda began his second inning and with one out loaded the bases. A sac fly made it a one-run game, and then a fly ball needed a diving catch by Rowan Felsch for the third out saving the tying and likely go-ahead runs from scoring
• The bats added big insurance runs in the ninth inning as Blake Penso tripled for the first time in his career scoring a runner that had reached on an error. Penso later crossed home a sacrifice fly for the final score of 4-1
• UCI's 13 hits mostly came from a handful of players like Frankie Carney going 4-for-4 out of the leadoff spot with a run and RBI.
  • McCombs and Colin Yeaman each had three-hit nights
  • Penso reached three times including two hits and his RBI
• Ojeda took home the win now responsible for the last three UCI wins and 7-0 on the season
  • Max Martin got all three hitters in the ninth to earn his Big West-leading eighth save
  • Kelly was hard-luck in the no decision, but struck out seven and lowered his ERA to 1.89

UC Irvine gets back in the win column now at 24-7 on the year and 12-1 in Big West play, tied for first place. The teams take the field again Saturday for a 6:00 p.m. first pitch between Trevor Hansen and Ned Frutchey.

Postgame Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"Green's tough - he went seven shutout against us last year, eight shutout against UC Santa Barbara last week, six shutout against Hawai'i, he will not give you the free base. I think we took good at-bats. The double plays were a little uncharacteristic and killed the deal a little bit. But yeah Green threw the ball well, and in no way am I disappointed in the offense."

"McCombs is as good as anybody in the country with the start that he's had to the season. To write his name in the lineup and the presence that's in there, but to do that after really not playing for a week, he's a special player."

"When you face good pitching, to win you need to get really good pitching. That's what we got tonight; Riley was really good, it seems like he gets better every week. That seventh inning was also really huge with the top of our lineup coming up and Ricky gets a zero. He pitched out of some problems in the eighth, Felsch makes a heck of a diving play with the bases loaded, and then Max in the ninth. There's Frankie making a really good running catch, Colin makes a great play on a rocket hit to him, you've got to get really good pitching and really good defense to win here especially when you're facing a guy like Green."