UC Irvine rallies to top 49ers

IRVINE — When it came to first impressions in the second season, the UC Irvine baseball team was anything but impressive Friday night. But Anteaters Coach Dave Serrano believes he has a team that can overcome this season, and the hosts proved just that in their 9-4 victory over Long Beach State to open Big West Conference play before 1,637 at Anteater Ballpark.

An error, two passed balls and a balk helped No. 18-ranked Long Beach State (13-10) seize a 2-0 lead, heading into the bottom of the second.

But No. 25-ranked UCI (21-6-1) settled in on the mound and squared around at the plate on its way to an impressive triumph that Anteater players said they hoped would make a statement as to their plans for contention in the Big West.

“We haven’t responded well to playing top-25 opponents,” said UCI pitcher Scott Gorgen, who threw his first collegiate complete game to improve to 5-1. “We know the [Big West Conference season] is a 21-game round-robin tournament and we know we have to come out and play our A game every game. To start off like this against Long Beach is definitely a huge win.”

“We’re shooting for every team in our conference, but Long Beach is a team to beat,” said Gorgen, who threw 128 pitches before throwing his fist to celebrate the game-ending double play. “You have respect for them, but on the field, it’s a battle. Every series is a battle, against Long Beach especially. We want to make them respect us by the end of this series, and for them to say [UCI] is a good baseball team.”

UCI was 2-10 in its last 12 conference games against the 49ers, including a three-game sweep last season at Blair Field that helped create a 1-6 start against conference foes.

“Last year, [the Dirtbags] kind of got to us,” said Taylor Holiday, who was one of seven Anteaters with two hits Friday. “They beat us all three games and we kind of wanted a little bit of revenge. We came out early and were a little tight, but we got loosened up, got that three spot [three runs in the second inning] and got back to playing our brand of baseball.”

UCI’s brand of small ball has been well documented and the ‘Eaters did not disappoint in that department. They bunted six times, including two singles and four successful sacrifices, two of which drove in runs on squeeze plays.

But the hosts totaled 14 hits, including a pair of triples, to help them produce single runs in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings, before taking on two insurance runs in the eighth that took the ball out of closer Blair Erickson’s hand.

“I had Blair warming up and he would have started the ninth in a save situation,” Serrano said. “[Gorgen] was at a pitch level I wasn’t comfortable with, but I thought the last three innings, he had started to really throw the ball well. And the more bullpen you can save on Friday, the better off you’re going to be.”

Gorgen, who faced one more than the minimum the last five innings, said he was thrilled to be asked to finish the job.

“I felt great,” Gorgen said. “I was really zeroed in to get my first collegiate complete game.”

UCI third baseman Tyler Vaughn, whom Serrano said was extremely sick, capped the three-run second with a two-run single to give UCI its first lead.

Matt Morris’ bunt single in the third plated Ben Orloff to put the hosts up, 4-2, but Long Beach knotted the score with its first two earned runs in the fourth.

Holiday, who made an error that led to a run on the first play of his first game this season at first base, tripled in Vaughn to give UCI the lead for good in the fourth.

Holiday, Orloff, Bryan Petersen, Morris, Linton, Aaron Lowenstein and Vaughn all had two hits apiece.

“People think we can just bunt and that’s a big part of our game,” Holiday said. “But we can swing the bats, too, as we showed getting 14 hits tonight. Doing everything is what we do.”

Serrano said he expects this team to keep doing what it does the rest of the conference campaign.

“I’ve made the analogy with the players that the conference season is a 21-game round-robin tournament,” Serrano said. “Early on, we came out tight and we were kind of playing to [the 49ers’] uniforms a little bit. We were a little embarrassed early, with the balk, the passed balls and the error to lead off the game. Then, Taylor Holiday came up and said ‘Let’s just go back to playing our style of baseball’ and our guys responded to that and I’m very proud of how they responded to Game 1, but it is Game 1, and only Game 1 in conference. As excited as we are, we realize we’ll have a challenge [today] and Sunday, and for next 20 games in conference.”

Big West Conference

UC Irvine 9,

Long Beach State 4

Score by Innings

LB 1 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 - 4 8 4

UCI 0 3 1 1 1 1 0 2 x - 9 14 1

Worley, Liebel (8) and Masuda; Gorgen and Lowenstein. W -- Gorgen, 5-1. L -- Worley, 1-1. 3B -- Holiday (UCI), Linton (UCI).