The UCLA baseball team may be in one of its best stretches in a decade, but the team hasn’t been making it look easy. The Bruins had to come from behind twice in a three-game sweep of Cal State Northridge over the weekend, winning 8-3 and 6-5 on Saturday and 12-8 on Sunday.
Mickey Weisser hit a walk-off single in Saturday’s second game to cap off a comeback, and Sunday, the Bruins were down 8-6 in the sixth inning before scoring six more runs to win the game.
The wins just keep coming for UCLA (22-16), which has won 14 of its last 16 games for the first time since 1997.
“We’re not giving up,” said first baseman Cody Decker, who hit his team-leading 10th home run of the year on Saturday. “Once we get down, we all have the confidence in each other that we’re going to get those runs back.”
If it weren’t for the late heroics, No. 24 UCLA could easily have lost a game to a Northridge team that has struggled, going 13-28 this year. Even one loss to the Matadors would have likely dropped the Bruins out of the rankings and put a damper on their recent surge.
“We’re gaining a lot of momentum with every win,” said shortstop Brandon Crawford, who went 5-for-12 in the series with four RBIs. “We’re just putting hits together. We’ve been having a lot of two-out hits which have been scoring runs.”
Rain postponed Friday’s game, forcing UCLA to play a doubleheader on Saturday. It also sprinkled throughout Sunday at Jackie Robinson Stadium, though the game was never delayed.
In Saturday’s first game, UCLA’s Tyson Brummett pitched a complete game, striking out eight while allowing nine hits and three runs.
“Tyson gave us what we needed in the first game,” coach John Savage said. “In a doubleheader, you’ve got 18 innings and you really don’t want to throw guys in the afternoon and throw them later in the second game.”
UCLA was down 5-3 in the eighth inning of the second game, when Will Penniall hit a home run to tie the game. In the ninth, Weisser’s single came with two outs, scoring Jermaine Curtis. Jason Novak threw 4 and one-third innings in relief, allowing one run.
“All of a sudden in the last 16 games, we have a different personality,” Savage said. “We have a different attitude. It’s never say die. When we get ahead of people, we’ve done a pretty good job of staying ahead. When we get behind, we know we never give up. It’s really a credit to the character of the team.”
The Bruins were ahead comfortably for the early part of Sunday’s game, until they allowed six runs in the sixth inning to fall behind 8-6. The Bruins tallied a run in the bottom of the sixth, and went ahead by scoring two in the seventh. Brant Rustich threw 3 and one-third innings of scoreless relief to close.
Northridge was a non-league opponent, and the series was the last weekend series UCLA will play against a non-conference team during the regular season. Still, for a team trying to qualify for the NCAA regionals, it was important for the Bruins to sweep the series.
“They’re a pretty good team,” Decker said. “It wouldn’t have been good if we were to sell them short. It was important to us. We need to focus on ourselves and not worry about who we’re playing. Once we did that, we really came together.”