UCLA barrels over USC, rallying behind left fielder’s decisive play

Junior left fielder Ty Moore had no hesitation as he tagged up from third base in the top of the sixth inning Sunday.

“As soon as the ball was hit, (assistant coach T.J. Bruce) said ‘tag,’ and as soon as the ball was caught, he said, ‘go, go, go,’” Moore said.

About three seconds later, the course of the rubber match between No. 7 UCLA and No. 6 USC would change drastically.

Moore sprinted home. The throw from the USC left fielder zipped through the infield and toward USC catcher Garrett Stubbs.

By the time the ball reached Stubbs, Moore was still a couple feet short of home.

The Trojan catcher held his ground over home plate, but the barreling Bruin bore no resistance. Moore slid hard into the Trojans’ backstop and jarred the ball loose, unleashing a collective roar from the Bruin players, coaches and fans at Dedeaux Field.

Moore’s score put UCLA up 4-2, and opened the floodgates for the Bruins in their eventual 8-3 victory.

“Ty’s an emotional player, Ty’s a hard player, and he brought the energy to the game,” said junior catcher Darrell Miller Jr. “He definitely changed the game with that slide.”

When Miller Jr. came up to the plate just moments after Moore’s slide, he built off the momentum Moore created. The Bruin catcher launched a homer over the left field wall, giving UCLA a 5-2 lead.

In Miller Jr.’s mind, there was no doubt that the momentum of Moore’s slide carried over into his at bat.

“Realistically, it does (affect the at bat) – I can’t say it doesn’t,” Miller Jr. said. “It gave me a little extra juice.”

The Bruins (25-7, 12-3 Pac-12) went on to outscore the Trojans 4-1 after Moore’s sixth-inning slide, showing more resolve than their rival over the game’s final innings. Just over a month earlier, the opposite case held true, as USC outscored UCLA 5-1 over the final six innings en route to defeating the Bruins 8-4.

After the game, Moore said with a smile that his slide would absolutely go down as one of the main memories of his UCLA baseball career.

“I mean, it’s a huge play against any team, whether it be the first- or last-place team in the conference,” Moore said. “But especially against ‘SC in a 1-1 series – that could be a big momentum swing and it proved to be today.”

Coach John Savage said Moore’s physical and energetic slide into home plate was emblematic of the kind of player Moore has become over the course of his three years in Westwood.

“He does get excited – he’s done that ever since he’s been on campus and every now and then we tell him, ‘can’t do that, can’t do this,’” Savage said. “But that’s part of his game and, you know, he’s not showing anybody up, it’s not fake, it’s not in anybody’s face.”

Run producer

Moore’s slide was only one of the many run-scoring plays he made for UCLA during the weekend series against USC (26-9, 8-4). In Friday’s game, he clubbed a three-run homer in the first, setting the tone for the Bruins’ 9-3 win. Then on Sunday, he drove in each of UCLA’s first three runs before scoring the fourth on that key slide into home.

“One thing at the end of the year last year coach wanted me to focus on was driving in runs,” said Moore, who was second on the team in RBIs last year. “This summer I went out (to train), focusing on trying to drive in runs and just really, when I get the opportunity this year, (to) kind of capitalize on it.”

Moore has capitalized so far. After his six-RBI series against USC, he leads UCLA with 34 runs batted in.