Gorgen feeds hunger

IRVINE — Scott Gorgen is wiping out campus hunger one start at a time, not to mention making some serious inroads in the school’s pitching record book.

Gorgen, a junior All-American pitcher for UC Irvine, struck out a career-high 14 Friday in seven innings to lead the No. 5-ranked Anteaters (24-7, 6-4 in the Big West Conference) to a 7-2 conference victory over visiting UC Riverside before 630 at Anteater Ballpark.

The 14 strikeouts, under an ongoing UCI promotion, provided all in attendance with the right to trade their ticket stubs for a free chili dog at a local fast-food restaurant. It was the second time in his four home starts that he fed the masses. He just missed in one of those starts, fanning nine.

One of his two strikeouts in the seventh, in accordance with another promotion, gave one fortunate fan a $25 gift certificate to a local Mexican eatery.

Gorgen’s performance upped his season record to 7-2 and elevated him in several categories in UCI career annals.

Gorgen now has 281 strikeouts, six shy of Gary Wheelock, who is No. 2. Gorgen needs 18 strikeouts to surpass career leader Glenn Swanson (298).

Gorgen’s 27 career victories rank fourth, three behind No. 3 Craig Brink, and his career winning percentage (27-10 for .730) also ranks fourth all-time.

Gorgen, who threw 119 pitches, 71 for strikes, was unable to finish what would have been his eighth complete game. He is two shy of the career record of nine complete games set by Bob Barlow from 1970-73.

UC Riverside Coach Doug Smith was so impressed with Gorgen, he later said he tried to take advantage of a brief power outage that affected one bank of lights, to have the game halted long enough to effectively take Gorgen off the mound.

When umpires elected to resume play seven minutes after the bank of lights behind the first-base dugout went out in the middle of the fifth inning, Smith protested the game.

But like trying to square up one of Gorgen’s fastballs, changeups and curveballs, there doesn’t appear to be much percentage in the protest holding up. The lights were back on soon after the game resumed.

The loss, the Highlanders’ seventh in a row, dropped the defending conference champions to 9-23, 3-4.

“The question would be was it safe or unsafe and I personally don’t think there was any issue with safety,” UCI Coach Mike Gillespie said. “The umpires didn’t either. And I think to Coach Smith’s credit, it was really about getting Gorgen out of there.”

Gorgen, however, was not only in the game, he was back to his fun-loving self on the mound, a departure from the stern face he carried through his last two starts against Cal State Fullerton (a no decision) and Long Beach State (a win).

“I kind of wasn’t pitching like myself the last two starts,” Gorgen said. “I just got back to locating the fastball and not trying to throw as hard as I could.

“I was back to having a good time, back to being me. It wasn’t all the straight-faced, big tough guy stuff out there. I was just out there having fun competing.”

Gillespie said he enjoyed Gorgen’s ability to locate his three pitches, but he also savored the ’Eaters’ offensive and defensive execution.

UCI scored twice on ground balls to the right side and Aaron Lowenstein laid down a successful safety squeeze bunt to plate another run.

Sophomore right fielder Dillon Bell’s sliding catch of a foul fly ball in the eighth inning capped an errorless defensive performance for the winners.

Junior shortstop Ben Orloff went three for three with one RBI and sophomore left fielder Francis Larson was three for four, including a two-run single in a three-run fourth, after UCI had posted single runs in each of the first three frames.

Ryan Fisher, Jeff Cusick and Casey Stevenson also had RBIs for the winners.

Big West Conference

UC Irvine 7, UC Riverside 2

SCORE BY INNINGS

Penney, Smith (4) and Opdyke; Gorgen, Calahan (9), Necke (9) and Lowenstein. W – Gorgen, 7-2. L – Penney, 0-5. 2B – Goetz (UCR), Price (UCR), Orloff (UCI), Cusick (UCI), Larson (UCI).

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