The Tritons — who sit at the top of the CCAA standings — have two more conference series before postseason play. The first will be a home-and-away series against CSU San Bernardino, beginning this Thursday, April 19 at San Bernardino. UCSD will end CCAA play with another home-and-away series against CSU Los Angeles, and will close out the regular season against Grand Canyon in the beginning of May.
GAME 1
No. 29 UCSD took a tight 3–1 win against the Toros last Thursday, April 12.
The Tritons scored all of their three runs in the bottom of the second inning, when freshman Brett Levy doubled down the leftfied line. Levy advanced to third on an error, and was brought home by junior second baseman Spencer Frazier. With just one out, sophomore Danny Susdorf doubled to load the bases. Frazier and junior Sam Michaels scored off a sacrifice fly.
The Toros recovered one run in the fourth inning, but were unable to close the deficit.
Triton ace Ryan Goodbrand 7–0 was credited with the win, throwing seven innings and allowing just four hits.
GAME 2
The next game of the series was scheduled to be played the following day, but was rescheduled due to inclement weather.
“Sometimes it’s tough, being on the field and not knowing if you’re going to play or not that day,” LaFace said. “But you just have to come in with the mindset that you’re going to have a game that day, and everyone’s just gotta play hard, regardless of the weather, because you never know.”
UCSD took a big 14–2 win, as Susdorf doubled, tripled twice and recorded three RBI in the second game. The bats were hot across the roster as shortstop Garrett Tuck recorded three hits on three runs, while Frazier chipped in two RBI.
Senior righthander Jeff Rauh recorded the win, relieving senior Greg Selarz in the fifth inning. Rauh recorded three strikeouts, while allowing only one hit in his three innings.
GAME 3
UCSD’s only loss came in the second game of the day, where they fell to the Toros 1–0.
The Toros capitalized on a Triton error in the bottom of the first inning to go up 1–0. But the Tritons were unable to get the bats going to close the gap.
“It was tough getting shut out in that game,” LaFace said. “I think guys came with the mindset that we had to make a change in our approach and just try and be more aggressive and put the ball in play as opposed to just being passive and waiting for something to happen.”
GAME 4
UCSD ended the series with a big 16–5 game last Tuesday, April 17 at Triton Baseball field.
The Toros took an early two run lead in the first inning, but the Tritons recovered in their turn at-bat. UCSD went up 5–2, off a three run homerun from sophomore Scott Liske.
The Tritons kept the bats hot throughout the match, as sophomore Nick LaFace went 4-for-4, while first baseman junior Richard Siegel went 3-for-4, recording four runs.
Triton southpaw junior Richard Kilbury 3–0 — the junior has picked up three wins in his past three games — allowed just two hits in his 2.2 innings.
“It was kind of a sloppy game on both ends, there were some things that we had to clean up defensively. It was just one of those games where different things happened, but I’m glad that we ended up on the winning side of it[c1]