Strong all-around performance propels baseball to win over Loyola Marymount

This post was updated June 2 at 9:53 p.m.

The Bruins will live to fight another day.

No. 1 seed UCLA baseball (50-9, 24-5 Pac-12) got some revenge against Loyola Marymount (34-24, 15-12 WCC) on Sunday night via a wire-to-wire 6-1 victory. With both teams boasting 2-1 records in the Los Angeles regional, the Bruins and Lions will now face off Monday night at 7 p.m. to determine which squad moves on to super regionals.

“Certainly (Monday) should be a pretty special time for LA college baseball,” said coach John Savage. “So hopefully the place will be rocking again, like it has the last two days, and we can get at each other.”

After launching four home runs earlier in the day in a win over Baylor, UCLA took LMU deep three times. Both teams went three-up, three-down in the first, but junior first baseman Michael Toglia gave the Bruins a 1-0 lead on a towering fly ball that hugged the left field foul pole with one down in the second.

It was Toglia’s second home run of the day – hitting the first as a lefty and second as a righty – and 16th of the season.

Freshman third baseman Matt McLain picked up an infield single with one out in the third and a single to center by junior shortstop Ryan Kreidler put men on first and second for the Bruins. Junior second baseman Chase Strumpf – who was 1-for-10 on the weekend coming into the at-bat – roped another home run to left to put UCLA up 4-0.

The Bruins made it three straight innings with a homer when junior right fielder Jeremy Ydens launched yet another deep line drive down the left field line.

“None of us are trying to hit home runs,” Strumpf said. “It’s just a solid commitment to an approach to the middle of the field, and I’d say it showed up.”

UCLA picked up one additional extra-base hit over the next five and added just one more run in the ninth on a single by sophomore Garrett Mitchell that scored junior left fielder Jack Stronach.

And having used eight pitchers over the first three games of the tournament, Savage had to turn to a surprise candidate to start the game.

Freshman right-hander Nick Nastrini – who hadn’t pitched since Feb. 26 after getting diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome – took the mound for the Bruins. Fresh off three-plus months of rest, he tossed five full innings and seven strikeouts.

“The outing by (Nastrini) … really came out of nowhere,” Savage said. “Everybody’s played the entire season, he hasn’t pitched in a game for three months. That’s very difficult to do, to get up to game speed and make pitches, control the environment.”

In his three appearances before the injury, Nastrini pitched 10 2/3 scoreless innings in two starts with 17 strikeouts. He allowed his first career earned run on an LMU sacrifice fly in the fifth, but still received a standing ovation from the UCLA fan section on his final trip back to dugout.

“Coming out of my surgery … I was really thinking I was just going to be more of a midrelief kind of guy, not really going to start,” Nastrini said. “My weight room, my throwing program and just my mental game, I knew I was prepared going into tonight.”

Redshirt senior right-hander Nate Hadley replaced the freshman and put up a 1-2-3 sixth followed by a two-strikeout, scoreless seventh. Hadley allowed the game-winning run against the Lions the previous night, but lowered his postseason ERA to 2.08 on Sunday.

Sophomore right-hander Holden Powell came in to start the eighth – and after walking the first two LMU batters he saw – got six outs in a row to end the game.

UCLA’s bullpen owns a 1.88 ERA through its first four games of the regional.

The Lions and Bruins will be back at Jackie Robinson Stadium for their third matchup of the weekend Monday at 7 p.m.