The Long Beach State baseball team dropped an extra innings affair with the No. 20-ranked Cal Bears 2-1 to even up the weekend series at Blair Field Saturday night.
While junior starting pitcher Matt Anderson kept the Cal bats quiet for six innings the LBSU (3-3) bullpen surrendered the lead in the top of the tenth inning on Chad Bunting’s sacrifice fly to left field off of sophomore reliever Josh Frye.
“You have to give it to them. They got one [run] off of Frye there,” Dirtbags head coach Troy Buckley said. “The game came down to who was going to make a mistake and take that opportunity to win a game.”
Leading off the tenth inning for the Bears, designated hitter Vince Bruno tripled off of Frye which then prompted Bunting’s sacrifice fly.
The Dirtbags scored the first run of the game in the sixth inning when junior Matt Duffy reached base on an error. Senior Brennan Metzger advanced Duffy to second base on a sacrifice bunt to set up junior right fielder Juan Avila’s RBI single.
Avila led the Dirtbags with two hits after registering three LBSU’s 7-4 win Friday night.
The Bears (4-1) responded immediately in the next half-inning when third baseman Mitch Delfino led off with a double and scored on Darrel Matthews single to left field.
Anderson gave up no runs in his six innings pitched and surrendered only four hits. The junior right-hander out of Chaffey College walked two while striking out three on 90 pitches in his second start of the season.
Meanwhile, Anderson’s counterpart Matt Flemer threw seven innings of two-hit baseball. The lone run the Dirtbags scored off of Anderson was unearned thanks to a Derek Campbell error.
Overall, Anderson struck out four and walked two on 96 pitches.
“Matt did a really good job; both [starting pitchers] did a really good job,” Buckley said. “Give credit to [Flemer], he did a really nice job and executed his pitches.”
In the eighth inning, Bears pitcher Logan Scott relieved Anderson and continued the strong Cal pitching against the Dirtbags. Scott didn’t allow a run and only one hit to Avila in the eighth inning.
“It was a good game and you have to flip the page real quick and try to [win] the series tomorrow,” Buckley said.
The Dirtbags return to action Sunday at 1 p.m. against the Bears in the deciding game of the weekend series with their Pac-12 foes