No. 5 baseball team seals first road win against San Diego State Aztecs
Sophomore left fielder Cody Keefer went 2-for-3 at the plate with a walk and a run scored in UCLA’s 5-2 win over San Diego State Tuesday at Tony Gwynn Stadium.
BASEBALL
UCLA 5
San Diego State 2
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 2, 2011 12:37 a.m.
SAN DIEGO “”mdash; After a nine-month vacation, the UCLA baseball team is back where it feels at home: the road.
In their first road game of the season, the Bruins disposed of the San Diego State Aztecs 5-2 Tuesday at a chilly Tony Gwynn Stadium.
The 2011 Bruins are hoping to earn the reputation that last year’s team earned in road games, going 15-4 on the road on their march to the national championship series in Omaha, Neb.
The win came as a welcome road start for the No. 5 Bruins (6-2) against the struggling Aztecs (1-6).
This isn’t the same Aztec team that produced former No. 1 Major League Baseball draft pick Stephen Strasburg or second-rounder Tony Gwynn Jr., and the trip was a short commute compared to the trip to Lincoln, Neb., that the Bruins will make next week.
A steady diet of seeing-eye hits, coupled with an Aztec pitching change, helped UCLA to break the game open in the top of the fifth inning. With the game lasting nearly four hours, coach John Savage was pleased with the way his team was able to grind out the win.
“This was a lengthy game, and it was a lot closer than it looked,” Savage said. “We had some quality at bats, and we could have scored some more runs, but at the end of the day, when you’re out here as long as we were (Tuesday), you want to get the “˜W’.”
With his team leading 2-1, UCLA sophomore left fielder Cody Keefer got the party started in the fifth by singling up the middle. Keefer’s single was followed by a pinch-hit single by junior second baseman Tyler Rahmatulla. One out later, junior catcher Steve Rodriguez put the game away with a double to drive in two more runs.
“I knew they were going to come at me with a lefty, so I just went through the whole routine,” Keefer said. “He just gave me the pitch that I wanted, and I went with it.”
Sophomore pitcher Scott Griggs didn’t command the mound as he did last week against Pepperdine. Freshman right-hander Zack Weiss was brought in to relieve Griggs in the third inning and didn’t allow a hit through three and a third innings. The Bruins got more help from the bullpen with junior reliever Mitchell Beacom and freshman closer Nick Vander Tuig helping seal the win in the final three innings, combining for four strikeouts.
“It just felt like the game was out of reach, but it really wasn’t,” Savage said. “We really have a lot of faith in our bullpen (pitchers), and they were outstanding.”
