LOS ANGELES REGIONAL
[1] No. 15 UCLA Bruins (42-16, 22-8 Big Ten)
[2] UC Irvine Anteaters (41-15, 24-6 Big West)
[3] Arizona State Sun Devils (35-22, 18-12 Big XII)
[4] Fresno State Bulldogs (31-27, 18-12 Mountain West)
Jackie Robinson Stadium (1,820) - Los Angeles, Calif.
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Parking
Friday vs. Arizona State - 6:00 PM |
ESPN2 |
KUCI 88.9 FM |
Live Stats
Saturday - 12:00 PM or 6:00 PM | ESPN+ |
KUCI 88.9 FM | Live Stats
Sunday - 3:00 PM or 7:00 PM | ESPN+ |
KUCI 88.9 FM | Live Stats
Monday (if necessary) - TBD | ESPN+ |
KUCI 88.9 FM | Live Stats
PITCHING PROBABLES
Friday: UCI RHP
Trevor Hansen vs. ASU LHP Ben Jacobs
Saturday: TBD vs. TBD
Sunday: TBD vs. TBD
Monday: TBD vs. TBD
Postseason Guide
Los Angeles Regional Bracket
NCAA Bracket
AROUND THE HORN
9th - UCI earns its 11th trip to a Division I Regional,
9th time as an at-large, 3rd under coach Orloff, and picked up its 3rd Big West regular season title
3rd - The Anteaters return to the Los Angeles Regional for a
3rd time falling in the Regional Final in 2010 before returning to win it in 2011
20-5 - UCI is
20-5 on the road, top 2 in the NCAA for a third season in a row, along with a 5-3 neutral site record. Over the last 3 years, UCI is 70-23 away from home
12 - 12 Anteaters were All-Big West including the first unanimous winners of Field Player, Pitcher, and Coach of the Year since UCI did so in 2009
LEADING OFF
+ UC Irvine earned an NCAA Regional bid for the 11th time in Division I program history, 16th berth across all divisions. UCI has gained the at-large nine times out of the 11. Coach Orloff has taken his team to the regionals three times now in seven seasons and two consecutive seasons. Overall, coach Orloff has been part of eight of the 11 UCI regionals - four as a player, one as an assistant coach, and now three as head coach.
+ UC Irvine won the Big West regular season for the third time joining the 2009 and 2021 Anteaters. They were the 1-seed in their first-ever Big West Championship as the conference brought back the tournament for the first time since 1998 as they finished as runners-up to Cal Poly
+ Big West Awards were issued last week with UC Irvine picking up Big West Field Player of the Year,
Colin Yeaman, Pitcher of the Year,
Ricky Ojeda, and Coach of the Year
Ben Orloff. It's the first time a team has won each award since 2015 and first time a team has done so without sharing any award since
Ben Orloff,
Daniel Bibona, and Mike Gillespie did it for the 'Eaters in 2009.
Þ It's the program's seventh Big West Field Player of the Year, third year in a row, seventh Big West Pitcher of the Year, first since 2019, and fifth Coach of the Year, fourth in the Big West, and second for coach Orloff
Þ
12 Anteaters were named All-Big West with five on the First Team (Penso, McCombs, Hansen, Yeaman, Ojeda), four second-teamers Martinez, Call, Kelly, Martin), and an honorable mention trio (Bermudez, Carney, Brooks. There were eight first-timers, three returners (Ojeda, Bermudez, Call), and three-time honoree
Anthony Martinez
+ UC Irvine is 6-3 this season against ranked opponents in 2025. UCI took 1 of 3 at No. 11 Oregon State, defeated No. 15 UCLA, has a win over No. 24 Nebraska in the season opener, a one-run loss to No. 16 Vanderbilt on a neutral site, and three wins on the road over No. 21 UC Santa Barbara. Six Anteater opponents earned spots in regionals with UCI posting an 8-7 record against those programs
+ UC Irvine is among the nationally ranked as the postseason draws near reaching as high as Nos. 7 and 8 on April 28. They began at No. 24 in the preseason by Baseball America. At the end of the regular season, UC Irvine found themselves ranked in every national poll anywhere from 18th to 22nd.
+ UCI finishes the season top two in road win percentage for the third straight season. UCI is 20-5 on the road, 25-8 away from home, and in the last three seasons have a 70-23 record away from Anteater Ballpark
Þ As a team, UC Irvine sits third in HBP, a year after setting the NCAA record with 175 in a season, and are also 18th in shutouts, and 25th in on-base percentage. The Anteaters also sit top 50 in the nation in triples, sac bunts, hits, runs per game, doubles, batting, and strikeouts pitched per nine innings
Þ Individual Anteaters have set themselves apart nationally:
+
Ricky Ojeda - 1st in wins, 37th in strikeouts per nine innings
+
Trevor Hansen - 16th in starts, 22nd in wins, 66th in strikeouts
+
Max Martin - T3rd in saves
+
Will Bermudez - 13th in sacrifice hits
+
David Butler - 12th in pitching appearances, team-leading seven holds
+
Chase Call - 9th in hit by pitch per game
+ The Anteater offense scored 8.2 runs a game to lead the Big West and finished top two in each part of the slashline:
Þ
Blake Penso was part of the All-Tournament Team with five hits, one home run, and seven driven in as he continues his hot May where he's hitting .380 (19-for-50) with 14 runs, three homers, and 20 RBIs
Þ
Jacob McCombs was another All-Tournament Team member driving in nine runs despite two hits, both leaving the yard. He led the team hitting .350 this year to go with his team-best .626 slugging
Þ
Chase Call and
Will Bermudez have each reached base 51 times via walk or HBP this year. Bermudez hit .500 in the Big West Championship and has hit .441 in May. Call returned from a back injury to hit .455 in the Championship as the pair are two of the top five active leaders in career HBP (Bermudez 64, Call 61). And Call became the program's all-time home run leader for good measure with 28 as an Anteater
Þ
Anthony Martinez continues his outstanding career hitting .345 over 162 career games. He's hit 25 career HR, second-most behind Call, stands eighth all-time in runs, seventh in HBP, tied for sixth in runs, and is one RBI away from tying Jeff Malinoff's team record of 189 set in 1974
+ Anteater pitching enters the regional with a 4.90 ERA while their 4.22 conference ERA led the Big West along with 18 overall saves and five shutouts:
Þ
Trevor Hansen topped UCI pitching in innings, strikeouts, and ERA with an 9-2 record picking up eight of the team's 11 quality starts. He continues his consistency starting all 31 weekends of his collegiate career
Þ
Ricky Ojeda is still the national leader with 13 wins as he became the first reliever to ever take home Big West Pitcher of the Year
Þ The weekend rotation filled out with
Riley Kelly and
Ryder Brooks a combined 7-1 in Big West play and each striking out 47 in 44.1 innings.
Þ
Max Martin and his 14 saves rank third in the nation with 12 coming in Big West games and five in the month of May
SCOUTING THE SUN DEVILS
Arizona State and its storied history returns to the postseason for a 42nd time and appears in its 36th regional, but the first time since 2021 and first postseason for fourth-year head coach Willie Bloomquist. The Sun Devils have won 171 postseason games all-time that includes 19 regional titles, 22 trips to the College World Series, and five national titles with the most recent in 1988. Their debut as a Big XII school ended in a 35-22 record and a fourth-place tie in the standings. It's resume was enough to earn a bid earning an RPI of 49 from the 45th-toughest schedule in the nation going 7-3 against common Anteater opponents including 4-0 vs. the Big West
The Sun Devils and 'Eaters have squared off 20 times in their histories dating back to the 1970s where UCI as a Division II school defeated top-ranked Division I ASU and produced four wins over the Sun Devils and 1973 and 1974 in years following CWS runner-up finishes for ASU. The series is fairly even at 11-9 favoring UCI as the 'Eaters have won six straight including two home wins in 2022 and a series sweep at Tempe in 2023. The sides also met twice in the postseason back in the 2007 College World Series where ASU won the opener, 5-4, before UC Irvine exacted revenge in an elimination game downing the Sun Devils on a 10th-inning walkoff, 8-7
The offense is impressive with the nation's ninth-best batting average joined by the Big XII's top slugging percentage. ASU scored 8.4 runs a game, and are never out of it having not lost a game this year by more than five runs. Matt King paces the attack hitting .405 and driving in 54 amidst a lineup that's dropped 84 homers, have eight players with double-digit doubles, Isaiah Jackson sporting 16 home runs and 65 RBIs, and speed on the bases swiping 113 bags including 20+ each from Kyle Walker (69 runs) and Kien Vu (10 HR)
Pitching and defense are no slouch either as Arizona State boasts the only team in the nation ranking top 15 in batting, fielding, and strikeouts pitched per nine innings recording 11.4 per game. The starting duo of Jack Martinez (6-3, 4.76, 75.2 IP) and Ben Jacobs (3-3, 5.03, 78.2 IP) have each stamped over 100 strikeouts with opposing batting averages under .235 to set things up pretty well for Arizona State. Not to mention
Ricky Ojeda's U.S. Collegiate National Team teammate this summer in Cole Carlon striking out 82 over 51 relief innings in 27 appearances backed by a 2.82 ERA. His three saves lead the crew where seven different arms have collected their 11 saves coming at the potent Anteater offense in a variety of ways.
SCOUTING THE BRUINS
UCLA is back in the postseason for a 26th time, and back as a regional host for the first time since 2019. Coach Savage now has 14 regionals out of 20 chances as his Bruins won the Big Ten regular season and just missed a conference tournament title falling to Nebraska in the final. At 42-16, UCLA is the No. 15 national seed having gone through the 22nd-toughest schedule in the nation and winning all but two weekend series missing at USC and at Oregon. The Bruins have played 33 times at home winning 26 as they prepare for more home cooking.
The Bruins won't start off against the Anteaters taking on 4-seed Fresno State to begin much like the 2011 Los Angeles Regional where the 'Eaters and Bulldogs played each other in the opening matchup. UCI went on to win that regional exacting revenge from losing the 2010 Los Angeles Regional. All-time, the 'Eaters and Bruins have played 100 times including the first-ever home game in UCI history, an Anteater win. They both have also succeeded under head coach Gary Adams, winner of UCI's two Division II National Championships in 1973 and 1974 before he spent 30 seasons at UCLA, and another coach and restarted UC Irvine baseball, John Savage, whose won a title with UCLA in 21 years now after getting UCI to the postseason once when he coached from 2002-04. He also beat the 'Eaters to open the 2006 Malibu Regional as UCLA's coach.
The offense this year has the goods hitting .291 while clubbing 73 home runs and leading the Big Ten in runs scored. Sophomore Roch Cholowsky is the real deal as a favorite to be the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2026 while posting 23 home runs this year, third in the nation, to go with 76 runs, 69 RBIs, and a ..783 slugging. He also reaches base via walk and HBP along with other offensive weapons Dean West (.314, 66 R), Mulivai Levu (.316, 11 HR, 74 RBI), and AJ Salgado (.307, 15 2B, 12 HR, 51 RBI)
Pitching and defense are coach Savage's bread and butter. Another year with a sterling ERA at 4.54 to go with the 10th-best fielding percentage of .981 and leading the nation in double plays turned. The weekend rotation of Michael Barnett (11-1, 4.18), Landon Stump (6-1, 4.75), and Ian May (6-3, 5.20) set the tone, but a slew of arms out of the bullpen make it just as difficult when called upon like Jack O'Connor (21 G, 3-0, 2.05), Cal Randall (24 G, 2-1, 2.91), and Justin Lee (29 G, 3-0, 5 Sv) among 10 other pitchers to see at least 16 games and all with a reasonable number of innings on their resumes.
SCOUTING THE BULLDOGS
Fresno State went on a run to win the Mountain West Tournament for a second straight NCAA Regional appearance and 37th in their program's history. Head Coach Ryan Overland is 2-for-2 in regional berths since shedding the interim tag. The former Bulldog catcher and College World Series champion has been on staff since 2013 rising to head coach. Fresno State enters the postseason with a 31-27 mark missing a regular season title by one game, and its toughest competition during the season came in Cal Poly, UCSB, and TCU going a collected 1-8 against them.
The Bulldogs and Anteaters have a long-standing series with one another playing 50 times, and Fresno State has 37 wins of them. Recently, the teams split a pair of blowouts at Fresno State last year, and prior to that, UCI started the 2020 season losing two of three at the Bulldogs. They've also crossed paths twice in the postseason opening both the 2009 Irvine Regional and 2011 Los Angeles Regional with the 'Eaters taking the win each time
The offense is definitely a strength hitting over .300 scoring 7.1 runs a game. They swing the bat with over 600 hits with leaders Murf Gray (.330, 73 RBI), Justin Stransky (.319, 43 RBI), and Bobby Blandford (.313, 52 RBI) each putting up over 70 hits and double-digit home runs. In addition, they hit a ton of doubles and sport a consistent lineup with seven players making over 50 starts and four players getting in every game.
Pitching and defense have really put them over the top in an historically offensive conference. The ERA is at 5.21, but they are very stingy with the walks and counter that striking out nearly nine hitters a game. On top of it, they sport the 25th-best fielding percentage in the country. The formidable 1-2 punch on the weekend of Aidan Cremarosa (6-5, 4.13, 89.1 IP) and Jack Anker (9-4, 5.72, 91.1 IP) will be a problem with each posting over 100 strikeouts, and both pound the zone; Anker especially hardly ever walks anyone with 12 in over 90 innings. The bullpen comes at you with a range of options like JT Guerrero (24 G, 2-3, 6 Sv) striking out 36 in 38.1 IP, Cooper Bergman (1-0, 4.61, 2 Sv) allowing opponents to hit just .228, Drew Townson (4-0, 4.46, 3 Sv) contributing to the winning, and Caleb Anderson (22 G, 2-3, 3.33, 27 IP, 37 K) possibly the toughest of the bunch looking to find the magic of the 2008 National Champs starting with looking for their first postseason win since 2019
