On April 23, the UCSD baseball team kicked off a crucial four-game series against Chico State with a heroic game-winning home run from senior first baseman Keith Albrecht in the bottom of the 10th inning. The final score of game one was 5-4.
The Wildcats avenged their loss by sweeping the doubleheader on April 24 by scores of 5-4 and 5-3, respectively.
UCSD entered game four on April 25 needing a victory to keep their playoff hopes alive. The Tritons rallied from a four-run deficit to earn an 8-7 victory and maintain their fourth place tie with San Francisco State.
In the April 25 game, with runners on first and second, UCSD red-shirt freshman pinch hitter Brian Trump took the first toss from Wildcat pitcher Nick Burger and knocked a double off the center-field fence with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. This was enough to lift the Tritons to the crucial victory.
“It was a good feeling,” Trump said. “I was ready the whole game and was just trying to keep my mind focused. I had a feeling that it was going to be a first-pitch fastball because that’s what he had been throwing. I was just sitting on that pitch and saw it.”
The Tritons were trailing the Wildcats, 7-3, in the bottom of the seventh inning. UCSD junior rightfielder Ryan Langone reached on an error to lead off the inning. After junior second baseman Ricky Pinocchio doubled, Chico State replaced junior starter Mike Jones on the mound with left-handed relief ace Robert Anaya. The Tritons got two runs back on an RBI ground out by junior leftfielder Joel Clark and a single up the middle by junior shortstop Keith Hernandez to make it a 7-5 ball game in the eighth inning.
Senior centerfielder Brett Burton, who had a pair of two-run triples on April 24 and had already collected two hits on the day, came through again with a two-run single through the left side of the infield to knot it at seven apiece.
“I think today’s win was a perfect example of our emphasis that anybody on any given day can step up for this team,” UCSD head coach Dan O’Brien said. “Brett [Burton] was injured for a while and as soon as he came off the [disabled list], he stepped in right away and started acting like a fifth-year senior and had a big weekend for us. He really did a great job for us this weekend.”
Tied at 7-7 in the bottom of the ninth, Burton drew a four-pitch walk with one out. Junior designated hitter Brian Robinson came back from an 0-2 count and singled through the left side of the infield to put Burton at second, representing the winning run.
Trump, who successfully gotten on base in each of his first six at-bats after red-shirting a year ago, came on as a pinch hitter and belted the first pitch he saw off the center-field fence. He is now 7-for-13 on the year with five runs, four RBI and a .769 slugging percentage.
“This win is huge,” O’Brien said. “We try not to worry about things in the conference that are out of our control, but we needed to get at least a split this weekend to stay eligible for the NCAA tournament. We want to get to the conference tournament, but we’re here to win a College World Series and [we could not have done] that without at least a split this weekend. So considering the way things went for us [in April 24’s doubleheader], today is a big win and we are pretty happy with the way we bounced back because the two losses made it a really tough day for a lot of guys on this team.”
UCSD junior pitcher Shlomo Lipetz, who went on the mound for the final three innings, picked up the win in relief of senior starter Raf Bergstrom, improving to a perfect 4-0 on the year in his first season in the program. Bergstrom was effective over six innings, allowing seven hits, two earned runs and three walks.
Burton finished 3-for-4 with a double, a walk, two runs, two RBI and a steal. Senior catcher Jeff Riddle was 2-for-4 with a home run to lead off the fourth inning, his fourth on the year. He also had two runs scored and two runs driven in. Robinson was 2-for-4 with an RBI single, and Pinocchio crossed the plate twice.
Chico State is now 34-17-1 overall and 21-13-1 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.
The win puts UCSD’s record at 30-21 overall and 19-17 in the CCAA. This marks the second time in O’Brien’s seven years that the Tritons have reached the 30-win mark for a season. The first was in 2002 when UCSD went 30-23-1. The victory also gave UCSD its 20th home win of the 2004 campaign.
More importantly, the win and the series split put UCSD back into a tie for fourth place with San Francisco State University in the CCAA. With the top four teams going to the CCAA conference tournament, the Tritons again must pull through for the final weekend of the regular season in a series at Cal State Stanislaus, April 30 through May 2, which will be played at Turlock Stadium in Stanislaus, Calif.
