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UCLA baseball makes comeback with dominant pitching

Sophomore pitcher James Kaprielian struck out a career-high 11 batters this weekend. (Katie Meyers/Daily Bruin senior staff)

By Jason Drantch

March 3, 2014 12:50 a.m.

After a home loss to UC Santa Barbara last Tuesday that left its record-breaking even, UCLA baseball went on its first road trip of the season searching for its lucky break.

Upon arrival to the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, N.C., the team must have stumbled upon a four-leaf clover, as it swept its three-game set at the USA Baseball-Irish Classic.

No. 19 UCLA (7-4) came into the weekend on a three-game losing streak, but turned that into a winning one after defeating Notre Dame (5-6), No. 6 North Carolina State (9-2) and Michigan (2-8-1).

“We (found our mojo) by playing good baseball,” said coach John Savage. “We pitched extremely well, we played good defense and we had timely hitting. At the end of the day, I think we got better this weekend and took a step in the right direction.”

With the offense still sputtering, the Bruins’ pitching staff won the weekend. UCLA’s starting pitchers threw 25 innings allowing no runs and only six hits, while striking out 27 batters and giving up only three walks.

The weekend was filled with career highs for each of the starters as well.

Sophomore James Kaprielian, who was a reliever last year, threw a career-high eight innings and struck out a career-high 11 batters. He only allowed one hit as UCLA went on to beat Notre Dame 2-1 on Friday.

“I just went pitch to pitch, and allowed the defense to work and they made plays for me when we needed them, so it was really a group effort,” said Kaprielian, who is now 2-1 on the year with a 0.90 earned run average.

On Saturday, junior Grant Watson only allowed three hits in a career-high eight innings of scoreless ball as the Bruins went on to shut out and upset No. 6 North Carolina State, handing the Wolfpack only its second loss of the year.

“We don’t really see the rankings aspect too much,” said Watson about upsetting the No. 6 team in the country. “The hype is for the fans and for the media and all that, but we just went out there and tried to play our baseball and we just let the results happen.”

Perhaps the most impressive performance, however, came from sophomore Cody Poteet who was two hits away from throwing a perfect game. In a 5-0 victory over Michigan, Poteet picked up his first win of the year in a complete game shutout (a career-high nine innings) and struck out a career-high 13 Wolverine batters.

He struck out at least one batter in every inning, with his total being the most since former Bruin Trevor Bauer struck out 14 on June 4, 2011 against Fresno State.

“He was as dominating as we’ve seen in any of our pitchers over the last several years,” Savage said. “(This performance) could kick-start his career into being an elite guy and I think we saw signs of that today.”

Contrasting the dominant pitching is the Bruin offense, which is still a work in progress.

Despite the victories, UCLA got out-hit in the first two games of the series. It had a combined five hits in those games, but was able to get into double digits with 10 on Sunday.

“The guys just strung some more hits together today and some more quality at bats and we ended up getting a few more runs,” Savage said. “It was a team effort. It was definitely a weekend that could really turn things in the right direction.”

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Jason Drantch
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