Baseball has answer for 49ers

Wednesday, May 8, 1996

UCLA responds with timely offense in 13-7 home winBy Yoni
Tamler

Daily Bruin Staff

The opening bars of Eddy Grant’s "Electric Avenue" blared from
the public address at Jackie Robinson Stadium on Tuesday night. It
meant only one thing: the UCLA baseball team had won again, this
time a 13-7 decision over Long Beach State.

Going into the game, even the most optimistic of UCLA fans could
not have predicted such a large margin of victory. The Bruins came
into the contest with a 31-21 record, nearly identical to LBSU’s
mark of 32-21. UCLA was ranked 19th, Long Beach No. 23.

In the last meeting between the two teams, Long Beach eked out a
one-run victory in the bottom of the ninth. Long Beach also
featured a pitching staff up there with the nation’s best with a
team ERA of 3.54. Meanwhile, UCLA had its reliable lefty Pete
Zamora (6-0) on the mound.

With such parity, who could predict a blowout for either side?
No one could have, and that included UCLA head coach Gary
Adams.

"Here’s a team that’s so much like us, that for them to be 2-0
against us would not be good," Adams said. "The fact that we split
with them is a big feather in our cap."

The Bruins (32-21) nearly lost a five-run cushion in the sixth
inning when the 49ers staged a two-out rally with Ryan Lynch on the
mound. Neil Sauerheber slapped a two-run double into right field to
put LBSU within two, and the next two batters walked and singled,
loading the bases for Jason Knupfer.

Rick Heineman then came in to relieve Lynch, but Knupfer singled
on his first pitch to score another. Heineman ended the rally,
inducing the next batter to ground out.

The Bruins answered in the bottom of the inning when Tim
DeCinces and Eric Byrnes each knocked in runs to give UCLA an 11-6
advantage. UCLA scored a total of three times in the sixth, the
third time in the game it did so after giving up runs in the top of
an inning.

"We were pretty relentless tonight," Adams noted. "Every time
they scored a run we answered back. If I’m on the other team, the
way we played tonight, I’ve gotta be saying to myself, ‘these guys
are relentless. We just finished scoring. They come back and they
score again. When are they going to stop scoring?’ and that’s kind
of been our motto this week–we gotta play relentlessly."

The 49ers (32-22) labored to match UCLA’s tenacity, posting 11
hits in the game. But in each of the four innings in which Long
Beach put runs on the board, UCLA responded with at least two. The
49ers didn’t help itself on defense either, tacking five errors
onto an already cluttered scorecard.

Most conspicuous in the UCLA box score was that all the damage
was done by three players – DeCinces, Byrnes, and shortstop Troy
Glaus. The three Bruins combined for 12 of UCLA’s 13 hits, also
driving 12 of the 13 runs. Each player had four hits and at least
three RBIs, with DeCinces and Glaus’ banging back-to-back home runs
for the third time this year in the third.

"The coaches explained yesterday what we have to do, and I think
everyone on the team knows what we have to do, not just three
guys," said Byrnes, who included a double and a stolen base to add
to his five-RBI night. "Right now it’s kind of sudden death and we
want to stay alive. We’re out there fighting to make sure we get a
spot and a good seed in the regionals."

Which meant, in part, not letting themselves be intimidated by
49er hurlers.

"We’ve seen the best pitching in the nation in the Six-Pac, and
these guys throw well, but if you approach each game the same way
you’re going to have success eventually. It’s baseball. Some days
you’ll go out there and get four knocks, and some days you go out
there and get zero. It’s the law of averages."

Glaus, another player who made life miserable for the 49ers,
took a similar slant on the game.

"We were real down after the Dominguez Hills, obviously, and to
beat a team as good as Long Beach State, it should give us momentum
to carry on against USC and hopefully take three from them."

FRED HE/Daily Bruin

Tim DeCinces belted his 12th homer of the year on Tuesday.