Baseball sinks at Sunken Diamond

Published: Monday, April 29, 1996

Monday, April 29, 1996

Without Adams and Zamora, Bruins lose three to StanfordBy Yoni Tamler

Daily Bruin Staff

On Friday the No. 13 UCLA baseball team drifted into a peaceful slumber, comforted by the visions of it's three-game lead of second place in the Six-Pac and, accordingly, a high seeding in the forthcoming regional playoffs.

Sunday afternoon the Bruins finally awoke from a ghastly nightmare in which they had been defeated three straight times for the first time all season, relinquishing their entire lead over No. 15 Stanford in the process.

Now the Bruins know what happens when you oversleep.

In case it had forgotten, UCLA (28-20 overall, 16-11 Six-Pac) received a painful reminder that the Six-Pac is college baseball's most competitive division, losing all three games to the Cardinal at Sunken Diamond in the most pivotal Six-Pac series for either team this season.

For UCLA, the sweep represented the latest in a series of foibles on and off the field. Stanford, on the other hand, won its six, seventh and eighth games in a row, putting it in a tie for second place with UCLA.

Of course, it didn't help that the Bruins were without head coach Gary Adams and starting pitcher Pete Zamora, both serving suspensions for an incident last weekend against Arizona State. That left an emotionally-spent UCLA ball club especially vulnerable going into the Bay Area, where red-hot Stanford (31-17, 16-11) was licking its chops in anticipation.

On Sunday the Bruins were flat out-powered in a 6-4 loss. Stanford went yard four times for all six runs, with All-American catcher A.J. Hinch slapping his tenth and eleventh on the season. Tim DeCinces and Eric Valent each tagged their ninth homers for UCLA. Freshman Jeff Austin (5-3) picked up the victory for Stanford, and is now 2-0 against the Bruins this season.

UCLA's Chad Matoian continued his offensive assault on Saturday, stroking a three-run home run for his eleventh hit in his last 12 at-bats. But the Bruins blew opportunities to drive in players all day long, leaving 10 runners on base, and Stanford won the game, 10-8. Jake Meyer pitched four scoreless innings, giving up one hit, and now leads the staff with a 2.78 E.R.A.

UCLA was shut out for the first time this season in Friday night's game, a 4-0 Stanford victory. The man responsible for silencing the Bruins' offense was Kyle Peterson (7-5), who himself was supported by just four meager runs off UCLA's Jim Parque. Coming off his worst start of the year last week, Parque (8-1) threw his third complete game of the season while giving up one earned run, but was spurned by his teammates' hitting.

The Bruins picked a particularly bad time to be swept in league play, considering they still have Six-Pac champion USC to play before wrapping up the conference season. After opening the year with series victories over the toughest Six-Pac schools, UCLA has now lost six out its last nine games in league, and is in danger of dropping into fourth with a poor showing against the No. 2 Trojans.

FRED HE/Daily Bruin

Bruin second baseman Chad Matoian went three-for-three with a home run in this weekend's series with Stanford.