UCI wraps up sweep

UC Irvine sophomore Justin Cassel threw eight innings of four-hit

ball to help the Anteaters post a 10-0 nonconference baseball victory

over visiting UC Davis Sunday to complete a three-game series sweep

of the Aggies.

Bryan Petersen worked a scoreless ninth to preserve Cassel’s

team-leading eighth win of the season and give UCI back-to-back

shutouts for only the sixth time in the 27-season history of the

program.

Sunday’s effort also completed the most dominant performance in a

three-game series by an Anteater pitching staff in school history.

UC Davis (23-25) scored one unearned run in Friday’s 3-1

series-opening loss, before being blanked Saturday and Sunday. The

fewest runs allowed previously by UCI in a three-game series was 2 in

a sweep of San Jose State in 1987.

Cassel struck out only one and walked one, throwing just 92

pitches, before Petersen came on to fan two while allowing two hits

in the ninth.

The UCI offense was also noteworthy, as junior first baseman Jaime

Martinez drove in four runs, including a two-run homer, his

team-leading fourth of the season, to help key a four-run fifth

inning.

Freshman center fielder Ollie Linton also homered in the fifth, an

inside-the-park job off the center-field wall.

Martinez, who belted a two-run single in the third, finished 2 for

4. He was 4 for 9 in the series and drove in seven of the Anteaters’

20 runs. He leads the team with 44 RBIs this spring.

Junior catcher Mark Wagner went 3 for 4 with two RBIs Sunday,

while Linton finished 1 for 2 with three RBIs and one run scored.

Linton went 5 for 6 with five RBIs in the final two games of the

series. The leadoff man had 11 RBIs through Friday.

UCI, pursuing its third 30-win season in the last four years,

improved 28-21.

The Anteaters are 7-8 in the conference, one game behind

fourth-place UC Riverside, which won two of three this weekend from

UC Santa Barbara to go to 8-7 in conference.

UCI plays host to Pepperdine in a nonconference clash Tuesday,

before finishing its regular season with three-game series at UC

Santa Barbara (Friday through Sunday) and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

(home May 27-29).

Nonconference

UC Irvine 10, UC Davis 0

Score by Innings

*--*

UCD 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 - 0 6 1

UCI 0 1 2 0 4 2 0 1 0 - 10 11 0

*--*

Soskin, Fitzgerald (5), Philips (6) and LaTorre, Treat (7);

Cassel, Peterson (9) and Wagner. W -- Cassel, 8-3. L -- Soskin, 3-2.

2B -- Wagner (UCI), Johnson (UCI) Cipriano (UCI). 3B -- Wagner (UCI),

Anderson (UCI). HR -- Linton (UCI), Martinez (UCI).