Anteaters rally past Cal

Barry Faulkner

Place all eight of the UC Irvine singles end to end Friday night and

they might equal the distance covered by a booming, 400-foot,

three-run home run by Cal’s Justin Nelson that gave the Golden Bears

an early lead.

But those eight Anteater singles, including two bloops, a swinging

bunt and a hooking liner off a reaching shortstop’s glove, were

enough to add up to a 9-7 nonconference baseball victory that may

wind up helping more than the Anteaters’ record.

“That was a huge win for this team,” UCI Coach John Savage said

after his hosts rallied from deficits of 3-0 and 5-3 to overcome a

Cal unit that has blasted 11 homers in seven games.

By contrast, only two of UCI’s 19 hits this season are for extra

bases, with only one home run.

“It’s so nice to know that we can let anything happen and we’re

still in the game,” said UCI starting pitcher Brett Smith, whose 2004

debut was less than sterling, but nonetheless victorious, thanks to

what UCI calls team offense. “We didn’t have a lot of that last year

(when the ‘Eaters struggled for runs and hit just .253 as a team).”

Said Savage: “Team offense is a concept that stresses moving guys

along, scoring guys with two outs and making two-strike contact.”

Whatever the concept, the results have now produced 16 runs in two

games for the Anteaters (1-1), whose rally from a five-run deficit

ended with the would-be-tying run thrown out at the plate in the

ninth inning of an 8-7 loss in Tuesday’s opener at Pepperdine.

“There’s not a lot of adversity you can throw at us that we

haven’t already seen,” said sophomore right fielder Erik Johnson, who

went 3 for 3 and drove in the final two Irvine runs. “Teams can get

two, four, or six runs on us early and that’s nothing new. With us,

it’s going to be battle, battle, battle and we’re going to get a lot

of W’s in the end.” The end for Cal (4-3) Friday began in a five-run

Irvine fourth, when Matt Anderson and Johnson singled in runs, while

Mark Wagner and R.J. Brown drove in runs with a fielder’s choice and

a sacrifice fly, respectively.

Smith, against whom all five runs were earned, settled down to

retire the last seven he faced, before exiting in the fifth, hanging

in just long enough to qualify for the win.

“Great pitchers win in all varieties,” Savage said of his junior

ace. Sometimes you win games 9-7 and sometimes you have to win games

2-1. I thought Brett showed a lot of maturity by putting up zeroes in

the fourth and fifth, when he might just as well have said ‘It’s not

my night.’ ” Irvine’s night proved more interesting when the Golden

Bears turned three walks and one hit into two runs to close to within

8-7 in the sixth.

But junior reliever Steve Schroer came in to stop the bleeding,

leaving two runners stranded and working through the seventh without

giving up a run.

He then turned things over to freshman Blair Erickson, who was so

impressive during a perfect eighth, Savage let him stick around to

earn the save.

Erickson, who sat out his senior year of high school with a broken

ankle, fanned three in two scoreless innings and now has six

strikeouts in three scoreless frames this spring.

“I thought Schroer and Erickson both threw the ball well,

especially Erickson,” Savage said. “Jimmy [Alstot, who was warming up

in the eighth and ninth] is still our closer, but a hot hand is a hot

hand and you don’t mess with [Erickson’s] hot hand.” UCI first

baseman Brett Dalton added an RBI and center fielder Gary Dudrey

scored two runs and stole two bases for the winners.

UCI pitchers combined to strike out 12 and allowed Cal just two

hits the final six innings.

ZOTS -- Among the 563 in attendance at UCI’s home opener Friday

was former Anteater and 15-year Major League veteran Brady Anderson,

as well as Newport Harbor High baseball coach Joel Desguin ... UCI

starting pitcher Brett Smith fanned seven in five innings, three off

his career-high set last season in a complete-game victory over

Washington State ... UCI’s Matt Fisher and Mark Wagner each had bloop

singles to center in the sixth inning for their first hits of the

season. Fisher had been 0 for 6 and Wagner 0 for 5 to that point ...

UCI freshman shortstop Chad Lundahl made just 10 errors in four

varsity seasons at Thousand Oaks High, but with two on back-to-back

hitters in the seventh inning Friday, he has three in his first two

collegiate games ... UCI’s victory closed Cal’s all-time

seriesadvantage to 9-8 ... The Cal series continues Saturday and

Sunday. Projected starting matchups: Cal’s Kyle Crist (1-1, 4.35 ERA)

against Glenn Swanson Saturday at 6 p.m.; and Cal’s Adam Gold (2-0,

0.73) against freshman David Huff Sunday at 1 p.m.. Gold has 17

strikeouts in 12 1/3 innings and has allowed just eight hits.

*--*

Nonconference

UC Irvine 9, Cal 7

Score by Innings

Cal 032 002 000 - 7 7 2

UCI 030 501 00x - 9 8 3

Brown, Padgett (4), and Grossman; Smith,

Koehler (6), Schroer (6), Erickson (8) and

Wagner. W - Smith, 1-0 . L - Brown, 1-1.

Sv - Erickson (1). 2B - Holder (C). HR -

Nelson (C).

*--*