UCI roll continues

IRVINE — As it was Sunday, with a season-best home crowd enjoying bright sunshine, a gentile, cooling ocean breeze, and the obligatory UC Irvine victory, life is good, these days, for the inhabitants of Anteater Ballpark.

UCI looking the part of the nation’s top-ranked program, closed out yet another Big West Conference baseball sweep, downing Cal State Northridge, 5-2, to improve to 34-11, 14-1 in conference.

Sophomore starter Crosby Slaught threw five-plus innings to improve to 4-0, giving UCI’s weekend starters a combined 20-2 record to this point.

Juniors Francis Larson and Jeff Cusick crushed home runs over the left-field fence to produce three of the hosts’ runs.

The other two UCI runs were scored by junior second baseman Casey Stevenson, whose hustle around the first-base bag twice allowed him to take second and reach scoring position – to the consternation of Matador outfielders and the appreciative delight of most of the 1,215 looking on.

Stevenson was two for four, as was freshman designated hitter Ronnie Shaeffer, who belied his .549 slugging percentage coming in by dropping a drag bunt for a single, and also stealing second base.

Shaeffer drove in a run, as did sophomore Ryan Fisher, helping reward a pitching performance that included a combined three spotless innings from relievers Brock Bardeen (who recorded seven outs while only facing six hitters) and Noel Avison.

Junior All-American closer Eric Pettis finished it off to notch his 14th save.

And none of this even touched on a defensive display that rounded out what UCI Coach Mike Gillespie said might have been the prevailing highlight of the sweep.

“It was a great weekend and I thought this was a really good baseball game,” said Gillespie, who waxed appreciatively about some perhaps overlooked elements of UCI’s success.

“I think Larson made a difference [at catcher], blocking three strike threes [in the dirt] that weren’t easy,” Gillespie said. “And the double-play ball [induced by Bardeen, who had just come on in place of Slaught with a runner on first and no outs in the sixth] was a 3-2 slider that you can’t throw with everybody.

“So, I really thought it was a great win; well played and well done.”

Bardeen, a fifth-year senior who has seen the Anteaters transition from cute, cuddly contenders into, arguably, the most cunning carnivores on the collegiate baseball scene, also reveled in the moment.

“Oh, I love it,” Bardeen said. “The Sunday day games … there’s no place I’d rather be. We had a great crowd here today and, you know, that just makes everybody play that much better.”

But Bardeen said UCI’s 15th win in its last 17 games was no better, or worse, than any of his team’s 34 triumphs this season.

“We’re just playing the game one day at a time,” Bardeen said. “You can’t really play any more than that. No matter who you play, you still have to play the game of baseball.”

This attitude, as apparent in the UCI dugout against Northridge (18-29, 4-14) as it was against the supposed Big West heavyweights the Anteaters have similarly clawed through, has been years in the making, Bardeen said.

“We like playing in the underdog role and doing that for so many years, it’s what we’ve gotten used to,” Bardeen said, “For us, it has been all about the process, as opposed to results. So, if we can continue to have success and stay with our process, as opposed to [thinking about] the results, the results will happen.”