‘Eaters bow out in 14th

MALIBU ? The most difficult thing about tying to convey how the UC Irvine baseball team’s season ended, just might be where to begin.

The Anteaters fell to Missouri, 5-4, in an NCAA Regional elimination game on Saturday at Pepperdine University. The epic 14-inning struggle lasted four hours and 44 minutes, and featured enough golden opportunities for either team to have generated a blowout.

Each team left 10 runners on base and each had six runners thrown out on the base paths. UCI had two runners nailed at the plate and two more cut down at third base.

Both teams wasted strong performances by their starting pitchers, and six hurlers ? three for each team ? combined to amass 28 strikeouts.

UCI, the designated home team, took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning, but Missouri pulled even in the fifth. Missouri scored a run in the seventh, but UCI scored three in the eighth to forge a 4-2 edge.

The Tigers (32-26) rallied for two in the ninth, then pushed across the game-winner in the 14th to hand the Anteaters (36-24) their first loss in five extra-inning games this season.

Missouri freshman pinch-hitter Ryan Lollis drove in the game-winner, lining a 1-2 changeup from Scott Gorgen into right field with two outs to score J.C. Field from second base.

Field had doubled to right-center with a runner on first and one out, but the relay from center fielder Taylor Holiday to shortstop Ben Orloff to catcher Aaron Lowenstein was in time to nail Gary Arndt trying to score from first for the second out.

Ironically, Holiday, Orloff and Lowenstein played a part in the Anteater’s ill-fated 14th inning rally.

Lowenstein singled to open the frame and remained there when Gary Dudrey struck out after failing to execute a sacrifice bunt attempt. Holiday followed with a line single to center, putting runners on first and second.

Orloff, who led the nation in regular-season sacrifice hits with 26, failed to lay down a bunt that might have put two runners in scoring position for Cody Cipriano. Orloff squared to bunt, but took the first pitch for a strike, then bunted the second pitch he saw just foul off the third-base line for strike two.

Cipriano had tripled in two runs and scored when the throw to third bounced away to put the Anteaters up, 4-2, in the eighth. But the junior, who finished the season leading the team in hitting (.354) and extra-base hits (23), was left in the on-deck circle when Orloff bounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game.

“There was a lot of amazing things that happened in that game that could have easily helped the other team win,” UCI Coach Dave Serrano said. “I don’t think there was one key blow in there, but I think there were a lot of body blows that we had to continue to take. It was a battle and we came up short in the end.

“It’s always tough to end your season and get eliminated in regional play. I don’t think that will hit me, or hit some of these players, how hard that was, just because we had the taste of victory right there, every inning from about the eighth inning on. It just kind of escaped us.”

Serrano said he could not single out one missed opportunity as the most costly, but what may hurt most as he ponders this loss, were the six times his player fanned with runners on base. Two of those strikeouts occurred with less than two outs and Matt Morris on third base.

Morris singled to lead off the ninth and also with one out in the 11th inning. Both times he stole second and advanced to third when the throw sailed into center field. But both times, reliever Travis Wendt struck out junior Chad Lundahl.

Lundahl’s whiff in the ninth was followed by a pair of walks, the latter intentional, to load the bases. But Holiday hit into a 1-2-3 twin killing to end the rally.

“I think both teams and both coaches are kind of disappointed about how many strikeouts there were on both sides,” Serrano said. “But [the Tigers] put the ball in play more when it counted. I would say that probably six or seven of our strikeouts came in some pretty big situations for us, where, if we just put the ball in play, things could have been a lot different for us.”

Things went differently for the Tigers, who, coming into Saturday’s game, had won just once in 21 games when trailing after eight innings.

“What we haven’t done all year is come from behind,” Missouri Coach Tim Jamieson said. “But our guys did a good job of coming back and tying the game.”

Senior Glenn Swanson pitched into the ninth for UCI. He struck out seven to up his school career record to 298.

Blair Erickson fanned four in three scoreless innings, before Gorgen struck out five in his three innings. Gorgen, the Big West Conference Freshman Pitcher of the Year, took the loss to fall to 7-5.

Dudrey, playing in his final game, matched Cipriano’s two hits to lead the ‘Eaters’ 11-hit attack. Jaime Martinez, who had a double and scored a run, also completed his UCI career.