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No. 11 UCLA Falls to Washington, 8-1, in Game Two of Weekend Series
March 14, 2015 | Baseball
LOS ANGELES – The No. 11 UCLA Bruins fell to the Washington Huskies, 8-1, on Saturday afternoon at Jackie Robinson Stadium. With the series now tied, 1-1, the winner of tomorrow's game will claim the series victory.
Washington's Tyler Davis (4-1) earned the win, allowing six hits and one run in 8.1 innings of work. Senior Grant Watson (2-2) garnered the loss after allowing six runs on eight hits in four innings.
In relief of Watson, freshman right-hander Griffin Canning was excellent. In his eighth appearance of the season, Canning went four innings, allowing no hits and no runs while striking out six batters.
For a second consecutive game, Chris Keck (2-for-3) and Kevin Kramer (2-for-4, RBI) each registered two-hit performances to lead the UCLA offense. From the lead-off spot, Brett Stephens added a hit and a run for the Bruins as well.
Washington (13-6, 1-1) struck first with a run in the top of the second inning to go up 1-0 early in the contest. With runners on first and second and one out, freshman Nyles Nygaard, making his second career start, fought off a tough pitch into right field to bring Chris Baker in to score.
Two innings later, things began to unravel for Watson and UCLA. With the bases loaded and one out, Watson walked in a run to make it 2-0 Washington. Then, after getting an out at home on a groundout, Jack Meggs cleared the bases with a two-out, three-RBI double to right field. In total, the Huskies added four runs in the fourth inning to extend its lead to five runs.
In the top of the fifth inning, Washington added another tally to go up 6-0 on the Bruins. In just two pitches, Branden Berry singled and Josh Cushing doubled to bring in the sixth run of the day.
After the Huskies tacked two more on in the top of the ninth, UCLA (13-5, 1-1) finally pushed across a run of its own in the final inning. With one out, Stephens lined a double into deep right-center field, bringing up Kramer. The junior shortstop proceeded to single through the right side of the infield, bringing Stephens into score for his 11th RBI of the year. However, the lone tally wasn't enough to overcome the deficit and resulted in the Bruins' first conference loss.
The 'rubber match' between UCLA and Washington will be played tomorrow at 1:00pm PT at Jackie Robinson Stadium. As with every game this season, fans can listen to all of the action live on uclabruins.com.
Notes: Chris Keck and Kevin Kramer have each recorded at least one hit in UCLA's last five games. Kramer now leads the Bruins in batting average (.400), hits (28), runs (24) triples (2) and total bases (47). Griffin Canning has recorded 38 strikeouts in 29.2 innings, ranking him second on the team in total strikeouts behind James Kaprielian (39).
