Anteaters notch win No. 40

RIVERSIDE — Though still stinging from having lost a bid at a Big West Conference championship the night before, and having lost the chance to host its first NCAA regional moments before the first pitch, the UC Irvine baseball team did what it has all year Sunday against host UC Riverside.

The No. 10-ranked Anteaters (40-15-1, 15-6 in conference) bounced back.

UCI scored early and often on its way to a 16-8 victory over the conference-champion Highlanders (37-19, 16-5) to complete a historically successful regular season.

Since the Anteaters became a Division I program before the 1978 season, no UCI team before this season had won this many games, won this many conference games and finished this high in the conference standings (tied for second with Long Beach State).

“I’m very excited about the way we finished off the regular season,” UCI Coach Dave Serrano said. “I’m just very proud of these young men. To get 40 wins; that’s a milestone for many programs in the regular season. We were able to do that. That sets the bar pretty high for future Anteater ballclubs from here on out.”

The visitors set the bar too high for the Highlanders by scoring two in the first, one in the second and three in the third to knock out UC Riverside starter Pat Cassa.

After No. 16-ranked Riverside scored single runs in the third and fifth, the UCI offense went back to work.

A two-run double by senior second baseman Cody Cipriano highlighted a four-run sixth inning for the visitors.

After a single UCI run in the seventh, the Anteaters added five runs in the eighth, including a two-run triple by senior outfielder Matt Morris.

The run support largely overshadowed a strong start by UCI freshman right-hander Eric Pettis, who allowed six hits and one earned run in seven innings. In his longest outing of the season, Pettis posted a career-high five strikeouts and walked two. He exited after 87 pitches, in order to allow some relievers to get some work. Pettis improved to 4-0.

Relievers Cole Hathcock and Bryan Petersen combined to surrender five runs and five hits in one-third of an inning, before freshman Tom Calahan retired the two hitters he faced to get out of the eighth.

Senior Blair Erickson worked the ninth, his only appearance of the series, allowing a solo home run to Mike Vass.

There were several hitting stars for the Anteaters, including Cipriano who went three for five with four RBIs and blasted his 12th homer of the season.

The two-run dinger, lined just over the top of the left-field wall, tied him with Chris Miller (2002) for the school single-season record. Cipriano, who had seven RBIs in the series to push his team-high total to 52, has 19 career homers, two shy of the school record capped off by Jaime Martinez last season.

Sophomore shortstop Ben Orloff went two for four with two RBIs and Morris was two for five with two RBIs, while Petersen and freshman first baseman Jeff Cusick both went two for four with one RBI.

Sophomore center fielder Ollie Linton, freshman catcher Francis Larson, junior third baseman Tyler Vaughn and freshman outfielder Dillon Bell all had a hit and drove in one run for the winners.

For Bell, who doubled as a pinch-hitter in the eighth, it was his first collegiate hit in 12 at-bats.

Junior Taylor Holiday, who started in left field, doubled in the eighth to extend his hitting streak to 16 games.

Serrano had plenty of praise for Pettis, who solidified the team’s need for a Sunday starter for the final four conference series.

“Eric Pettis is a big reason we’ve turned it around on the mound,” said Serrano, also the team’s pitching coach. “He has given us five to seven innings every weekend. He gets in jams, but he has shown the courage to get out of them. He sets a great tempo for a Sunday game. We were searching for a long time and he stepped up and wanted the ball on Sundays and it has turned things around for us.”

Cipriano said the win showed the kind of resiliency the team has displayed all season.

“We had one goal taken from us [Saturday] night,” Cipriano said. “We lost a good baseball game to a good baseball team and we wanted to come out here today and we knew what was in front of us.”

The victory gave UCI a 2-1 series win and also provided the Anteaters their 13th series victory this season in 15 three-game sets.

“That’s what really good teams, great teams, are able to do,” Cipriano said. “If you lose, a game, especially in a regional, you have to be able to bounce back. I think that kind of shows what kind of team we are, and players we have on this team.”

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at barry.faulkner@latimes.com.

Big West Conference

UC Irvine 16, UC Riverside 8

Score by Innings

UCI 2 1 3 0 0 4 1 5 0 - 16 16 1

UCR 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 5 1 - 8 12 3

Pettis, Hathcock (8), Petersen (8), Calahan (8), Erickson (9) and Larson; Cassa, Runzler (3), Penney (7), Bills (8) and Opdyke. W -- Pettis, 4-0. L -- Cassa, 2-4. 2B -- Holiday (UCI), Cipriano (UCI), Bell (UCI). 3B -- Morris (UCI). HR -- Cipriano (UCI), Vass (UCR), Opdyke (UCI).