UC Irvine holds off USC

IRVINE — UC Irvine baseball coach Dave Serrano said his team continued its recent streak of playing out of character Tuesday night against visiting USC.

But the Anteaters also showed they still have plenty of character in reserve, as they grinded their way to a 4-3 nonconference victory before 975 at Anteater Ballpark.

“The game is testing us right now,” said Serrano, whose squad lost two of three from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo over the weekend to end a streak of eight straight series wins and fall into sixth place in the eight-team Big West Conference. “It’s testing to see how much character we have, how much cohesiveness we have as a unit and how much toughness we have. That [victory] wasn’t easy.”

UCI (26-10-1), ranked No. 18 by Baseball America, committed three errors, which led to one unearned run and put starting pitcher Cory Hamilton and reliever Dylan Axelrod in more trouble than they deserved.

USC, in fact, had 16 base runners in the game, including at least one in eight of nine innings. The Trojans (19-19) stranded eight, including the potential tying run at second in the ninth.

But it was a USC error that, perhaps, created the most difficulty for the visitors, as a hard-hit ground ball with two outs and runners on second and third went off the glove of USC shortstop Grant Green to cap a three-run third for the Anteaters.

Tyler Vaughn walked with one out to start the threat for the hosts and Ollie Linton beat out a bunt for a single to put runners on first and second. Taylor Holiday then produced his team-leading 32nd RBI by lacing a single to break a scoreless tie.

After Ben Orloff’s sacrifice moved runners to second and third, they both scored when the ball skipped off Green.

UCI freshman starter Hamilton, making his first appearance since April 1 and his first start since March 18, took advantage of the early good fortune. The right-hander worked four innings, allowing three hits and one run, to improve to 3-1.

Axelrod surrendered two hits and one unearned run in three relief innings, before Wes Etheridge worked a scoreless eighth.

Etheridge, the Anteaters’ Saturday starter who likes to get some work during the Tuesday games, took the mound to start the ninth, with UCI leading, 4-2.

Hector Estrella opened with a line single to left and Keith Castillo lined out to center. Pinch hitter Mike O’Neill hit the seventh pitch he saw off Etheridge over Matt Morris’ head in left for a double, plating Estrella and bringing on closer Blair Erickson.

Erickson, who established the NCAA career record with his 50th save Saturday, struck out Nick Buss for the second out, then caught a soft liner off the bat of Green to end it. Erickson upped his career saves total to 51 by posting his 11th save this season.

UCI’s insurance run in the eighth proved handy.

Linton, who as more heralded UCI hitters continue to struggle, seems to be becoming more and more dangerous at the plate, tripled off the right-field wall to lead off the UCI eighth.

After Holiday lined to the shortstop, Orloff, whose 12 hits in nine conference games lead the team, laced a sinking liner to right.

The Trojans’ Roberto Lopez made a diving catch, but Linton tagged and scored, doubling the ‘Eaters’ lead.

“[Linton] is a spark plug and I’m glad that he made it difficult to keep him out of the lineup, because he’s adding a lot of excitement to the lineup,” Serrano said.

Linton, a redshirt sophomore making his 11th straight start after starting just three of the first 26 games, went two for three to raise his average to a team-leading .404.

Bryan Petersen also went two for three to pace the Anteaters’ six-hit attack.

USC starter Tommy Milone went seven innings, yielding just five hits and one earned run. But he was stuck with the loss and fell to 2-4.

“You’re seeing some uncharacteristic things from us right now,” Serrano said. “But if we want to be successful, we’re going to have to get back to the basics of catching the ball, putting it in play and throwing strikes, because we aren’t doing those as well as we were early on when we were successful.”

Nonconference

UC Irvine 4,

USC 3

Score by Innings

USC 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 - 3 8 1

UCI 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 1 x - 4 6 3

Milone, Rabago (8) and Stock; Hamilton, Axelrod (5), Etheridge (8), Erickson (9) and Larson, Lowenstein. W -- Hamilton, 3-1. L -- Milone, 2-4. Sv -- Erickson (11). 2B -- Estrella (USC), O’Neill (USC). 3B -- Linton (UCI).