Baseball throws curve at Texas

Friday, May 24, 1996

Bruins in driver’s seat to win regional as Miami, Long Beach are
upsetBy Brian Purcell

Daily Bruin Contributor

AUSTIN, Texas. ­ The strength of Jim Parque’s arm and a
flick of Tim DeCinces’ wrists combined on Thursday night to propel
the UCLA baseball team into an unexpected position at the NCAA
Central I Regionals: the driver’s seat.

DeCinces hit a tie-breaking two-out, two-run home run in the top
of the eighth inning to lead the Bruins to a 5-2 victory over the
hosting Texas Longhorns, and with the top two seeds in the region
already falling in shocking upsets earlier in the day, UCLA has
become the early favorite to win the region.

Top-seeded Miami lost to very lightly-regarded Sam Houston State
5-4, in the first game of the regional, and second-seeded Long
Beach State matched the Hurricanes’ incredible futility by dropping
a 5-3 decision to Southwest Missouri State in the second game. The
Hurricanes and 49ers will meet today in an 11a.m. game,
necessitating the early departure of one of the top two seeds.

Early on in their game against Texas, it appeared that the
fourth-seeded Bruins would end the streak of upsets. The Longhorns
had a 2-0 lead through five innings, and Texas pitcher Jake O’Dell
had shut them down on only two hits.

"It took us a while to get used to the atmosphere," DeCinces
said of Disch Falk Stadium, which was filled by about 7,000 rabid
Longhorn fans. "You could actually feel the vibrations of the crowd
out there."

Parque struggled along with the team in the early going,
allowing single runs in the third and fourth innings, and
consistently getting behind Longhorn hitters. After the fourth,
however, Parque settled down quickly, allowing just three hits and
no walks over the last six innings, and finishing the game with a
season-high 11 strikeouts.

"I started to feed off the enthusiasm of the crowd," Parque
said. "I love to enjoy their silence. It’s a great feeling when
they have nothing to say."

The Bruins (34-26) first got on the board in the top of the
fifth inning when senior third baseman Zak Ammirato homered over
the right field fence, and they tied the score in the top of the
seventh when Pete Zamora doubled home Eric Byrnes.

The top of the eighth started innocently enough for the Bruins,
as Nick Theodorou and Zak Ammirato each grounded out quickly to
start the inning. Unfortunately for the Longhorns, reliever Eric
French then made the mistake of walking Troy Glaus to bring up
DeCinces.

French got two strikes on DeCinces, but then served up a pitch
that appeared to be off the plate outside. DeCinces simply flipped
the bat at the ball, and as the crowd kept waiting for the
leftfielder to camp under the seemingly harmless fly ball, he never
did, and the ball carried over the fence.

"I thought it had a chance," DeCinces said. "I wasn’t sure that
it was gone. When it landed on the other side of the fence, it was
the best feeling I’ve ever had in this uniform."

The Bruins will take on fifth-seeded Southwest Missouri State
(31-23) tonight in a 7 p.m. game. A victory will put them one win
away from the championship game, but UCLA will try to not look too
far into the future.

"We’re not going to make the mistake of not respecting a team,"
UCLA head coach Gary Adams said of the chances of his team
overlooking tonight’s opponent. "Anybody that’s here is a good
team. You saw what happened to Long Beach and Miami today."

DeCinces simply flipped the bat at the ball, and as the crowd
kept waiting for the leftfielder to camp under the seemingly
harmless fly ball, … it carried over the fence.FRED HE/Daily
Bruin

Sophomore pitcher Jim Parque had a season-high 11 strikeouts
against Texas.