With his Bruin team in a jam in the bottom of the ninth, baseball coach John Savage called upon his best arm to try and seal a much-needed win against one of the best teams in the country.
Tim Murphy, usually the ace starter of the weekend rotation, was up to the task.
The Bruins led 6-3 with one out in the ninth inning when junior left-hander Brendan Lafferty gave up a pair of hits and walked one to load the bases. The shaky performance forced Savage to bring in Murphy to finish the game.
The passionate southpaw did just that, retiring two of the three batters he faced to help UCLA (26-23, 8-10 Pac-10) escape with a critical 6-4 non-conference victory over No. 12 UC Irvine (33-14, 10-8 Big West) Tuesday at Anteater Ballpark.
“Murphy’s our Friday guy and came in with a good attitude,” catcher Brent Dean said. “He was pretty fired up and that carried on to the rest of the team. He came in with one out and did his job.”
The Bruins managed to break a scoreless tie in the third inning. After singles by right fielder Gabe Cohen and Dean, third baseman Jermaine Curtis followed with a single of his own to drive in Cohen. A batter later, second baseman Alden Carrithers singled to left field to score Dean from second base and give UCLA a 2-0 lead.
The Anteaters responded with a run off UCLA starter Matt Grace in the bottom half of the third inning to cut the lead in half.
Leading off the fourth inning, left fielder Mickey Weisser launched his second home run of the season, which gave UCLA a 3-1 lead.
“The whole team was really aggressive and stayed with the plan,” Dean said. “A lot of guys contributed when they came up in clutch situations. The home run from Weisser was huge. Every single guy contributed in some way.”
In the sixth inning, Lafferty became the third Bruin left-handed pitcher to take the mound. He received a rude welcome from left fielder Tony Asaro, who hit a triple into the right-center-field gap and came around to score the tying run on a ground out a batter later.
But the Bruins remained resilient in the back-and-forth affair, scoring runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings to build a 6-3 lead.
“We had a great mentality tonight,” Savage said. “It was a hard-fought ballgame in which both teams had a lot to play for. … We can certainly build off this and look forward to the weekend.”
For UCLA, the win is a first step in the goal of obtaining an NCAA regional berth.
“Every game from here on out is pretty big,” Dean said. “This one is no different from any Pac-10 series. This was a big-time win against a team that is highly ranked.”
The Bruins host Washington State this weekend in their second-to-last series of the season.
BRUINS COLLIDE: A season-long trend of UCLA injuries continued Tuesday. Outfielders Brady Dolan and Cohen collided in short right-center field while in pursuit of a fly ball. According to Savage, Dolan suffered a hip injury while Cohen had concussion-like symptoms. Both players walked off the field under their own power.