‘Eaters complete in victory

NORTHRIDGE — The overriding theme for the UC Irvine baseball team Thursday was leading off.

The No. 23-ranked Anteaters led off Big West Conference play with a 16-2 thrashing of host Cal State Northridge in what most would consider UCI’s most complete game of the season.

Senior leadoff man Casey Stevenson and senior starting pitcher Danny Bibona stood out among a large cast of contributors.

Stevenson, hitting in the leadoff spot for only the second time all season, went four for seven with a career-high five runs batted in. The left-handed-hitting Stevenson opened the scoring with a booming home run to right field in the third inning. He also helped key an eight-run ninth inning by driving a three-run triple into the gap in right-center field.

Stevenson, who came in hitting .289 with 14 RBIs, made the final out for the ’Eaters with the bases loaded. Until that final at-bat, he had been 11 for his last 13 at-bats with the bases loaded, dating back to last season.

“I don’t know what it is,” Stevenson said of his eye-popping success with the bags juiced. “Everyone always jokes with me that I get a hit with the bases loaded.”

Somewhat less perplexing was the performance of Bibona, an All-American who was Big West Pitcher of the Year last season, when he went 7-0 in conference play to pace the team to a 22-2 Big West record and the program’s inaugural conference crown.

Bibona took a no-hitter into the sixth, allowed just four hits, and struck out a season-high 12 in eight innings. He walked one and allowed two earned runs against a Northridge unit that came in batting .336 with 30 homers and a .511 slugging percentage.

“[The Matadors’] offensive numbers are staggering,” UCI Coach Mike Gillespie said. “So, Danny made a pretty good hitting team look mediocre.”

UCI, which came in with a .310 team batting average, was anything but mediocre.

The Anteaters (15-8) amassed 22 hits to win their conference opener for the fourth straight season.

Junior third baseman Brian Hernandez was three for five with three RBIs, while senior first baseman Jeff Cusick continued his strong campaign by going two for six with two RBIs, including his team-leading fourth home run of the season. Cusick, on a 14-game hitting streak, also leads the team with 27 RBIs.

Senior catcher Francis Larson and junior right fielder Jonathan Hurst both had two hits and an RBI, while sophomore designated hitter Ronnie Shaeffer and junior left fielder Ryan Fisher had two hits apiece for UCI.

“It’s great to start a new season with conference play,” said Stevenson, who scored four runs. “We struggled a little bit earlier in the year [including a three-game losing streak and losing a three-game series at Nevada, both things last year’s team did not do]. We had way higher expectations for ourselves than what we showed the first four or five weeks of the year. It was great to come out here and make a statement the first game of conference against a really good Northridge team. This is, stats wise, the best Northridge team that we’ve faced in the three years that I’ve been here.”

Rounding out the picture for UCI was errorless defense, including a barehanded play by sophomore shortstop D.J. Crumlich to end the game, and a leaping catch near the fence by Fisher.

“It was a good day,” Gillespie said. “There wasn’t much to not like. Bibona was really good and we got a lot of hitting from a lot of different guys.”

Northridge (16-8) had won 12 of last 14 coming in, including eight of its previous nine.

The series continues today at 3 p.m. and concludes Saturday at 1 p.m.

Big West Conference

UC Irvine 16, Cal State Northridge 2

SCORE BY INNINGS

Bibona, Summers (9) and Larson; Juarez, Gorski (8), DeBoo (9), Swanson (9) and Piazza. W – Bibona, 4-2. L – Juarez, 1-2. 2B – Hernandez (UCI) 2, DeMarco (CSN), Larson (UCI). 3B – Stevenson (UCI) . HR – Stevenson (UCI), Cusick (UCI).