Dudrey delivers for UCI

With his teammates on their most exotic road trip of the season, Gary Dudrey was given an unexpected and unwanted vacation from the UC Irvine baseball program.

After four home games to open the season, UCI’s trimmed travel roster for a three-game series at Hawaii did not include the senior outfielder whose cumulative statistics the first three seasons ? a .208 batting average ? were as modest as his physique.

But Dudrey, who had started 25 games in both his sophomore and junior seasons, wasn’t about to give up on a collegiate diamond career that had largely been, well, rough.

Instead, he deepened his determination to salvage what he could of his swan-song season in the sport.

The results have been almost stunning.

The 5-foot-11, 165-pound product of Arlington High in Riverside has actually muscled his way into the lineup, where he remains a productive pillar in the No. 9 hole.

Already small in stature, he shinks even more succinctly into his batting stance. Crouching compactly at the plate, he might even inspire complacency from the defense.

But a look at the numbers reveals that Dudrey has, in fact, become the Anteaters’ Sultan of Squat.

With 36 hits in 96 at-bats, he is hitting a team-leading .375. But despite his fondness for the bunt, he has also shown a penchant for pop.

He has seven doubles and two triples, and he collected his biggest career dividend ? a home run over the left-field fence at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo ? on April 15.

His .521 slugging percentage tops the club, as does his .466 on-base percentage, and he has swiped 18 bases in 22 attempts, including five steals in five tries in a three-game home series with UC Santa Barbara that concluded Sunday.

Dudrey also had the defensive highlight of the series for the ‘Eaters, flying into the base of the fence after making a leaping catch of a drive over his head in the series opener Friday night.

“I’m very proud of Dudrey,” UCI Coach Dave Serrano said Sunday, after the Anteaters took the rubber game of a Big West Conference series for the second straight week. “Gary didn’t make the Hawaii trip. A guy who is a fourth-year senior and he didn’t make the trip. He didn’t take that well and I wouldn’t want him to take that well. He responded in the right way.

“He kept working and working, almost as if he were saying ‘Look at me’ in practice. And when he finally got his opportunity, he has taken advantage of it. Now, it’s going to be a struggle for us to get him out of the lineup, because he brings such a dynamic to our lineup with his speed. He also plays great defense and the offense he’s bringing adds so much more to our team.”

Dudrey simply smiled and shrugged at the mention of his increasing indispensability.

“It has been great,” Dudrey said of his current patch of productivity. “The last couple years, I’ve kind of been in and out of the lineup. But I got a couple opportunities to do something and I did something with them. I made it so they couldn’t take me out of the lineup.”

Dudrey said his ultra-aggressive approach is merely the way he learned to play the game. He said he feels no pressure to continually prove himself these days.

“I’m definitely feeling comfortable,” he said. “I’ve been playing aggressively since I was a little kid. I’ve always been fast and I’ve always wanted to go, go, go. That’s just my mentality.”