UCLA
8-11, 2-2
California
9-10, 1-3
Big Inning Lifts UCLA over California
March 24, 2017 | Baseball
LOS ANGELES - Nick Valaika collected three RBIs including a two-run home run, while Kyle Cuellar drove in the go-ahead runs in the sixth inning as the UCLA baseball team came back from four runs down to defeat California, 9-5, in the series opener on Friday from Jackie Robinson Stadium.
Trailing 4-2 in the sixth inning, the Bruins scored five runs to take a 7-4 lead and never trailed the rest of the game. Chase Strumpf led off the inning with a first pitch home run to cut the Cal lead to just one. Later in the inning, Sean Bouchard plated Ryan Kreidler with a sacrifice fly to right field to knot the game at 4-4. Cuellar would give UCLA the lead in the next at-bat with a two-run double to right field, followed by a Valaika RBI-single for the fifth and final run of the inning.
The Golden Bears scored a run in the top of the seventh but UCLA reponded with two more runs in the bottom half of the inningย as Daniel Amaral doubled to center field to score Kreidler and Daniel Rosica for the final score of 9-5.
Starting pitcher Griffin Canning (1-1) earned his first win of the season tossing 6.1 innings, allowing five runs on seven hits with six strikeouts. California's Zayne Patino (0-1) suffered the loss allowing four runs on two hits in 1.1 innings of work. The Golden Bears started Jared Horn who went 4.0 innings allowing one run on two hits but walked five batters.
California jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the fourth inning as Andrew Vaughn and Denis Karas recorded back-to-back hits to bring in runs, but the Bruins cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the fifth inning as Valaika hit a two-run home run over the left-field wall.
UCLA and California will continue its three-game Pac-12 series on Saturday at 4 p.m. (PT) from Jackie Robinson Stadium. The game will be broadcast live on Pac-12 Network with J.B. Long and Eric Byrnes on the call.
Game Notes: The five-run inning in the sixth for UCLA is the second-most runs in a single inning for the Bruins this season โฆ Nick Valaika and Chase Strumpf each tallied their third home runs of the season โฆ The Bruins improve to 2-1 when hitting multiple home runs in a game โฆ Valaika's three RBIs marks a career-high โฆ Kyle Cuellar is tied for the team lead with four multi-RBI games โฆ Griffin Canning is now 18th on UCLA's all-time strikeout list with 210 โฆ Canning's five runs allowed are the most this season.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Canning, Griffin (1-1)
L: Patino, Zayne (0-1)
Batting:
2B: Vaughn, Andrew 1
RBI: Vaughn, Andrew 1 ; Karas, Denis 2 ; Dodson, Tanner 1 ; Flower, Max 1
SH: Flower, Max 1
SF: Flower, Max 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Eden, Cameron 1 ; Mitchell Jr, Jeffrey 1 ; Vaughn, Andrew 1 ; Karas, Denis 1 ; Davis, Jonah 1
SB: Mitchell Jr, Jeffrey 1
Batting:
2B: Amaral, Daniel 1 ; Cuellar, Kyle 1
HR: Valaika, Nick 1 ; Strumpf, Chase 1
RBI: Amaral, Daniel 2 ; Bouchard, Sean 1 ; Cuellar, Kyle 2 ; Valaika, Nick 3 ; Strumpf, Chase 1
SH: Stephens, Brett 3
SF: Bouchard, Sean 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Amaral, Daniel 2 ; Cuellar, Kyle 1 ; Valaika, Nick 1 ; Strumpf, Chase 1 ; Kreidler, Ryan 2 ; Rosica, Daniel 2
SB: Amaral, Daniel 1 ; Kreidler, Ryan 1
HBP: Rosica, Daniel 2
