Bruin baseball sweeps Arizona

Bruin baseball sweeps Arizona

Peter Zamora hits two game-winning dingers versus Cats

By Ross Bersot

Upon arrival in Westwood after being blown out in the finale of
last week’s Stanford series, UCLA baseball head coach Gary Adams
gathered his team for a meeting.

In front of the statue of Jackie Robinson that watches over the
Bruin ballpark, he explained that the team had no reason to give up
the goal of reaching the regional playoffs.

Adams estimated that the Bruins (22-17 overall, 10-11 Six-Pac)
would have to win seven of their next nine conference games to give
themselves a chance. This would seem a lofty aspiration,
considering his team owned only seven Six-Pac wins in 18 attempts
previous to the three-game series with Arizona.

"(Jackie Robinson) had every reason to quit, to give up and he
never did," Adams said. "If he never gave up, we should never give
up. No matter what the situation, no matter where we are, let’s vow
right now not to quit."

Apparently, the players took their coach’s advice to heart.

From the first pitch in Thursday’s series opener to the final
out in Saturday’s finale, the home team played with relentless
determination, earning its first Six-Pac series sweep of the season
against the hapless Wildcats (16-28-1, 4-17).

Friday’s contest began with UCLA starter Rick Heineman retiring
the Arizona side one-two-three. Wasting no time, the Bruins put two
runs on the board with two outs in the bottom of the first inning.
Catcher Tim DeCinces blooped a single to left bringing up first
baseman Peter Zamora, who launched a monstrous home run over the
365-foot mark on the right-field wall.

Down 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth, UCLA’s Nick Theodorou led
off the inning with a walk. Theodorou got put out at second as
Wildcat catcher Chris Cooper recovered from dropping a designated
hitter Chad Matoian pop-up to make the throw in time to beat the
Bruin leftfielder to the bag.

DeCinces tagged the next Kirt Kishita offering out of the park,
putting the home team up 4-3.

Wildcat bats managed three more runs, two of which were earned
from UCLA winner Ryan Lynch (2-1) to take a 6-4 lead into the
bottom of the ninth.

With two outs, Theodorou began the Bruin rally, reaching first
on a throwing error to first by Jake Thrower who moved over to
shortstop from second after Mattern was taken out of the game for
pinch hitter Cory Robbins. Matoian advanced Theodorou with a hard
shot to short that Thrower couldn’t handle. Reliever Ben White
proceeded to walk DeCinces, loading the bases.

Zamora came to the plate and promptly went down against White.
Zamora bombed the next pitch over the wall right for a game-winning
grand slam. His second roundtripper of the contest gave him his
sixth RBI, ending the game 8-6.

"I was just looking dead red. My eyes were real wide waiting for
some pitch in the strike zone," Zamora said. "He gave me it and I
hit it."

Leading 9-7 in the top of the seventh, Zamora moved over from
first to the mound and struck out Menno Wickey to end the inning.
Arizona then scored three runs to take the lead 10-9 in the top of
the eighth.

After a great catch by Rico in center field to rob UCLA first
baseman Cass Olson of a hit, DeCinces blooped a ball into shallow
right field along the first baseline. Just unreachable by the
Arizona fielders, DeCinces took first on the single. In order to
get speed on the basepath, Brett Nista took DeCinces’ spot on first
as a pinch runner.

The substitution did not matter. Zamora came to the plate in a
clutch situation to face White for the second day in a row. With
only one home run on the season before the Arizona series, Zamora
took White downtown for the second day in a row, putting UCLA up
11-10. The freshman standout then went back to the mound and
retired the side in order to pick up his third win of the
season.