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Baseball:
Defense Leads to No. 1 UC Irvine Sweep of Pacific
May 10, 2009 STOCKTON, Calif. --- Eric Deragisch robbed Joey Centanni of a two-RBI hit and connected with Casey Stevenson for a game-ending double-play and preserve a 6-5 win for No. 1 UC Irvine as the Anteaters swept Pacific Sunday at Klein Family Field. With the win, UCI improved to 37-11 overall and 17-1 in the Big West while Pacific dropped to 18-28 (8-13) overall. The Tigers had runners on second and third with one out in the ninth following a double by Nick Longmire to bring Centanni to the plate to face reliever Eric Pettis. Centanni's line-drive shot was snatched out of the air by a leaping Deragisch, who then fired down to Stevenson at second to get Longmire diving back into the bag. It was the second time in the contest that UCI's defense played a key role. In the bottom of the eighth, trailing 6-4, Pacific put runners on second and third with two outs. Pinch hitter Allen Riley singled to right field to score J.B. Brown. Mike Walker was waved home from second but Tommy Reyes came up firing and threw a strike to catcher Ronnie Shaeffer in time to tag out Walker and end the inning. The defensive effort overshadowed a career-best start by Crosby Slaught, who pitched a personal-best seven innings and improved to 5-0. Slaught allowed four runs on six hits and struck out three while walking one in the winning effort. Noel Avison allowed an unearned run in 2/3 innings while Pettis logged his 16th save after pitching 1.1 scoreless innings and scattering three hits.
The offense was led by Reyes, who was perfect at the plate, going 3 for 3 with two RBI while Eric Deragisch went 2 for 4 with a run batted in. Ben Oloff and Ronnie Shaeffer added two hits apiece.
Orloff led off the game with a hard single up the middle and took third on a single by Deragisch before plating the team's first run on a double-play grounder to second. The Tigers knotted the score in the bottom of the frame as Nick Longmire doubled to lead off the inning and was pushed to home on a pair of groundouts with Brown registering the RBI. The Anteaters put runners on first and third with one out in the top of the second for Tony Asaro, who hit an infield single to score Shaeffer and give UCI a 2-1 lead. Orloff was hit by the pitch to load the bases for Deragisch, who smacked two-run double to left for a 4-1 advantage. Pacific answered again, cutting the lead to two in the bottom of the second with a run on a wild pitch. UCI capitalized on a Tiger error to lead off the third and loaded the bases for Reyes, who drove a 1-0 pitch off the leg of starter Jamie Niley and scored two runs to extend the lead to 6-2. The Tigers responded again with two runs in the fifth as Centanni doubled in Josh Simms and then crossed the plate on Brown's single up the middle to trim the lead to 6-4. Niley fell to 1-4 after giving up six runs on eight hits in 2.1 innings. Hunter Carnevale limited UCI to two hits in 6.2 innings in relief. Brown paced the Tigers with two RBI on 1 for 3 hitting. |
