The UCSD men’s baseball team played host to its rivals from UC Davis for a four game series that took place on Triton field Friday and Sunday.
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The first game featured a match-up between the Aggies’ Luke Steidlmayer, younger brother of UCSD men’s tennis head coach Eric Steidlmayer, and the Tritons’ Andy Hanau, who was looking for his third win of the season. UC Davis came off the block first with runs in the second and fifth innings. UCSD kept it close with good pitching and good relief work. The game, however, got away from the Tritons in the eighth inning as Davis’ Shaun McCullough homered, bringing in John Carrion and adding two RBIs to his season total. The ninth inning was icing on the cake for Davis. McCullough brought in another two runs with a single, scoring second baseman Adam Wilson and third baseman Matt Kamigawachi. The Tritons did, however, muster one run in the ninth, as Jeff Riddle singled to left field to score Robert Peelle. The game ended in a 6-1 victory for the visiting team. Luke Steidlmayer threw a complete game and improved his record to 9-1, while Andy Hanau fell to 2-8. The Tritons’ overall mark fell to 11-28, 5-23 in conference play.
The second game was a better showing by the Tritons. Peelle was on the mound for the Tritons, looking for his third win of the season. UCSD faced a tough pitcher in Josh Holtkamp, who would end up pitching 7.2 innings in the game. The first three innings were grueling, with each team scraping for runs. In the first, Davis opened with a run by Adam Wilson off a ground ball by Robby Turk. Kamigawachi had a sac fly for Davis in the second, scoring center fielder Taylor McLeod-Roemer and making the score 2-0. Davis added another run in the third and UCSD scored two runs in the same inning. Junior Tyler Sullivan scored off a Ryan Larson single, and Nathan Bestul brought in Larson with a single to right center.
UCSD tied the game in the fourth as center fielder Matt Smith singled to score right-fielder Blair Suzuki. The rest of the game was a pitching duel, with teams ringing up no runs against the dominating starting pitchers and relief. However, in the sixth inning, UC Davis got a break off an error by UCSD, which prompted a run by McCullough, making the score 4-3.
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The score remained that way until the eighth inning, when UCSD tacked on a run by Suzuki off of a single by Anthony Lococo. The teams failed to score again until the 13th inning, where Davis brought home three players to lead 7-4. Wilson had two RBIs in the inning as well as scoring off a Turk single. UCSD failed to score in the bottom of the 13th, as the game ended in amazing fashion, with Davis escaping with a 7-4 win.
“”The games against Davis proved that we can compete in the [California Collegiate Athletic Association],”” said junior Chad Addison. “”Our record shows that we have struggled this year, but the majority of our games have been close. We need to stop making little mistakes that are costing us ball games. We have ended up on the wrong side of too many one-run and two-run ball games.””
In a pair of late games on Sunday, UCSD picked up two wins.
With the game on the line in the first game and down three runs in the bottom of the ninth, the Tritons came back with four runs in the bottom of the inning to defeat their rivals from Davis, 7-6.
In the second game, the Tritons brought out the bats, winning 8-2.
The record improves their season total to 12-29, and 6-22 in the conference.
“”We know we can compete; we just need to start pulling out some victories,”” Addison said. “”Playing against Davis is no different to us than playing against anyone else in the CCAA. It doesn’t matter who it is — as long as it is a conference game, there is always a little more emotion involved.””
