The Long Beach State baseball team won its fifth series in a row with a 5-4 come from behind win over UC Irvine in the finale of a three-game series on Sunday afternoon.
“We have a lot of respect for [Irvine],” LBSU head coach Troy Buckley said. “It’s a big accomplishment to [win this series]. It’s good for us to come out on the good end.”
The Anteaters held a 4-2 lead going into the fifth inning, but the Dirtbags would score three runs to take the lead in what would be the eventual final tally.
Irvine starting pitcher Crosby Slaughter would strike out the first two LBSU batters of the inning before he would walk Matt Duffy and then hit Ino Patron with a pitch. Duffy would score when junior third baseman Juan Avila singled him in following Patron’s hit-by-pitch.
Senior center fielder Brennan Metzger then stepped up to the plate and roped an offering from UCI reliever Evan Brock down the left field line to score both Patron and Avila. The Metzger double was one of three the defensive wiz would hit on the day, including two great plays on defense.
Avila’s RBI single before Metzger would drive him in was his second of the day. In the first inning Avila singled to right field to bring in Duffy.
Slaughter’s counterpart, Dirtbags starter Shawn Stuart, would pitch seven gritty innings allowing an uncharacteristic three earned runs. Stuart came into the game with a 2.06 ERA.
Despite hitting three batters, Stuart struck out five Irvine batters while walking one on 100 pitches.
In the fourth inning with two runners on base for the Anteaters, clean up hitter Connor Spencer sent a Stuart offering deep to center field only to have Metzger track it down.
The ball traveled to the deepest parts of Blair Field before Metzger was able to make the over the shoulder catch ending the inning.
Coincidentally, Spencer lined another ball off of Stuart in his next at-bat to center fielder but once again Metzger made a diving play to snag the ball steal another hit from the Irvine slugger.
“That [first] ball was crushed and it started toward the gap and it came back over my head before I made a play on it,” Metzger said.
Jon Maciel would come on in relief of Stuart in the eighth inning pitching an uneventful half.
Buckley would call on Kyle Friedrichs to close out the game and series in the ninth inning and like they did against Maciel the Anteaters went quietly with a strike out and two groundouts.
Irvine would score two runs in both the second and fourth innings before the Dirtbags three-run fifth inning that would decide the series.
Like their 2011 three-game set at Anteater Stadium in Irvine the Dirtbags would be no-hit in the first game of the series, but would win the final two to earn a series victory.