Just like coach Gary Adams said, “It was a good weekend,
but it could have been a sensational one.”
In the first series of the year for the UCLA baseball team
against Fresno State, it won Friday’s game, 6-2, and
Saturday’s, 13-11, but narrowly missed the sweep Sunday,
losing 3-2 in 10 innings at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
Still, the weekend was a good one for the Bruins (3-1), as they
took two out of three from a respected Bulldogs team (3-4) picked
to finish second in the Western Athletic Conference.
“Even today I thought that we played well,”
sophomore Brett McMillan said after Sunday’s loss.
“Today was just one of those days where they were able to
string together a hit there and a good pitch there. There is a lot
to be encouraged about from this weekend because the fact of the
matter is we still got two out of three.”
Friday and Saturday’s contests were won with two opposite
facets of the game ““ Friday via pitching and Saturday via
hitting.
Friday, senior Casey Janssen shut down the Bulldogs with six
shutout innings of one-hit ball, collecting eight strikeouts. Small
ball provided the Bruins’ six runs as they collected 10 hits
and seven walks.
“I mixed it up well and kept them off balance,”
Janssen said. “I spotted my fastball when I needed to and I
had a lot of success with it.”
On Saturday, the long ball both began and ended the victory.
Freshman Jarrad Page homered in his first career at-bat to lead off
the game for UCLA. After both offenses took turns demolishing the
opposing pitchers, the game entered the eighth inning with Fresno
State ahead 11-9.
Then, after McMillan hit a sacrifice fly to trim the deficit to
one, senior Brandon Averill launched a three-run home run that put
UCLA up for good, 13-11.
The home run capped a monster day for Averill, who finished with
three hits and six RBI. Others in the long list of Bruin offensive
stars were junior Billy Susdorf with four hits, junior Matt Thayer
with three hits and three runs, and sophomore Chris Denove with
three hits and four RBIs.
Senior shortstop Mike Svetlic made a spectacular play for the
second out in the ninth inning by scaling the bullpen wall to snag
a foul pop-up.
Sunday reverted to a pitcher’s duel as both Fresno starter
Michael Cooper and UCLA starter Bryan Beck were effective in
holding the other team to two runs. McMillan was responsible for
both Bruin runs with a two-run home run in the bottom of the
fifth.
However, it seemed that the offensive outburst from the previous
day drained the Bruin bats as they could only manage five hits,
wasting a fabulous effort by five pitchers and clutch fielding by
shortstop Ryan McCarthy.
“Our pitchers pitched well enough that we should have won,
but we are gonna get more than two runs most games,” Adams
said.
In addition to Page, freshmen pitchers Kevin Brophy, Brant
Rustich and Brian Schroeder received important playing time, the
first action of their careers.
“We had a good weekend,” Janssen said. “We had
a lot of people have their first taste of college baseball, and a
lot of them did well.”
UCLA next plays today at Loyola Marymount (2-2). Junior Wes
Whisler will make his first start of the season.
“I feel pretty comfortable,” McMillan said.
“We’re gonna start getting in the swing of things as
far as the season goes, so hopefully we’ll go out Tuesday and
get a win.”