BAKERSFIELD, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball endured a nearly-four-hour melee Friday night against Cal State Bakersfield emerging with a 14-11 win to start the weekend.
- After a quiet first inning, the offenses made their presences known in the second:
- Blake Penso knocked in the first of his six RBIs on the night to open things up, 1-0
- Will Bermudez doubled under the glove of the CSUB left fielder for two runs with two outs and take a 3-0 lead
- The Roadrunners responded with some two-out magic of their own doubling home a pair to cut it to a 3-2 game
- UCI had its biggest offensive swing of the night in the third inning plating five runs
- The usual suspects were involved as Jacob McCombs reached on one of his four hits and scored one of his three runs on a Rowan Felsch sac fly to make it 4-2, 'Eaters
- Penso returned with a massive, two-out home run to grow the lead to 7-2
- Zach Fjelstad got the two-out rally going again doubling before Bermudez singled him home and lead, 8-2
- CSU Bakersfield got a solo home run in the bottom of the inning to stay in the mix, but UCI stepped on the gas once again with four in the fourth
- After knocking CSUB's starter out of the game, UCI got two hits to start things against the new arm
- A double play ball cut into the threat, but the bats rejuvenated with two outs knocking four straight hits
- Fjelstad had the crushing blow following RBI hits by Felsch and Penso with a home run to deep right field to take the biggest lead of the evening, 12-3
- UCI's defense let in two runs in the bottom of the inning on a dropped third out in center field allowing CSUB to rally for a couple runs and cut it to 12-5
- UCI's lead was 13-5 after a Bermudez squeeze play was executed in the sixth before Cal State Bakersfield mounted its best inning of the night in the bottom half
- With a runner on and two out, the Roadrunners got to work and loaded the bases on a hit by pitch and a second walk in the inning
- Brock Perreira cleared the bases with a double to close the score to 13-8
- After a hit batsman and pitching change, the 'Runners hit consecutive RBI singles off David Utagawa to climb back to within 13-10 before a pickoff, one of two on the night for Anteater pitching, ended the threat there
- Heading into the seventh, Penso once again delivered getting a run back on his fourth hit of the night, again with two outs to push the lead back to 14-10
- Ricky Ojeda was called upon and closed things down striking out six in the final three innings and allowing a leadoff double in the ninth to score on a double play ball before locking up the win and his second save of the season, 14-11
- Reliever David Butler took the win when the dust settled despite five earned runs in 1.2 innings
- Riley Kelly battled through four innings, 99 pitches, and six strikeouts as the starter, but did not factor in the decision
- The offense cranked out 18 hits with three players responsible for 12 of them with four different Anteaters accounting for all the RBIs
- Penso, McCombs, and Bermudez all had four-hit games for the 'Eaters.
- Penso launched his sixth home run of the season along with a team-high for the season and a personal career-high six RBIs, and scored four times as well, a career high
- Bermudez finished 4-for-4 with four RBIs in five times at bat
- McCombs had four singles scoring on three of them
- Felsch reached base three times scoring twice and driving in a pair
- Fjelstad out of the ninth spot in the order hit his fifth home run while driving in two, scoring twice, and reaching four times on three hits
- UCI runs its record to 36-11 and maintains its two-game lead in the Big West over Cal Poly
The series continues Saturday with another 6:30 p.m. first pitch.
Trevor Hansen and Shane McAlinden square off on the mound.
Postgame Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"It's hard to win and it's evidenced by that. It doesn't feel good when you don't play well. It feels less bad when you don't play well and still win, but it never feels great when you don't play well."
"I thought we had really good at-bats early. Opponents came in batting .230 against King, he went seven shutout against Cal Poly last week, so I think we took really good at-bats off of him early. Penso with a couple big hits, Fjelstad with a couple big hits, Bermudez with some big hits. We did some good things early, especially off King, but that was a good nine-inning game by us."
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