Baseball team claws into Wildcats for series winBy Jeff Agase

By Jeff Agase
Daily Bruin Staff Writer
[email protected]

A 24-29 team isn’t supposed to come back after giving up
eight runs in the first inning. Or nine.

This weekend, the UCLA baseball team laughed in the face of the
above statements.

The Bruins (24-29, 8-10 Pac-10) won 18-14 Sunday afternoon in
Arizona after giving up nine runs in the first. It came two days
after they lost 10-9 in a game where they clawed back in response
to an eight-run first inning.

Put together with a virtually mistake-free 5-3 win Saturday,
their resilience paid off with a series win and a position in the
Pac-10 standings above the Wildcats, who fall to 28-20, 7-11.

“We really put ourselves in a hole Friday night letting
them score eight runs, and we did an even better job of it Sunday,
letting them score nine,” UCLA head coach Gary Adams said.
“But we had a meeting at the end of the first inning Sunday
and I told them to stick with our approach.

“I told them that nine runs weren’t going to come
close to beating us.”

It’s a good thing the Bruins believed him, because judging
from the way the weekend started, things looked like business as
usual. The Bruins lost their 11th one-run game Friday night when
Arizona’s Brian Anderson singled home the game-winning run
with two away in the bottom of the 10th.

The last of four errors ““ all in the middle infield
““ allowed the eventual winning run on base, but the Bruins
also left 10 men on base. The snowman in the first inning
didn’t help, either.

“After a game like that, you have to come out hungry
again,” senior Casey Grzecka said. “It is hard and it
is demoralizing, because everyone always says that good teams win
the one-run games.”

Undaunted but haunted by another walk-off loss, UCLA avoided a
similar first inning fate on Saturday behind strong pitching, only
to see it get even hairier Sunday.

The Bruins tied Saturday’s game in the seventh when Billy
Susdorf hit his first career home run. Then UCLA let Arizona make
the crucial mistake. An errant throw by Arizona pitcher Joe Little
allowed first baseman Warren Trott to round first on a chopper and
continue to second.

Trott later scored on a single by Ryan Rasmussen, and reliever
Doug Silva came in for three innings of no-hit ball to claim the
save.

Freshman phenomenon Wes Whisler, who hit two home runs over the
weekend, pitched six solid innings, scattering seven hits and
allowing just three earned runs.

Arizona rang up the scoreboard nine times in the first inning
Sunday behind two home runs, one a three-run shot and the other a
grand slam.

But the Bruins steadily lopped runs on Arizona pitching. Scoring
in all but two innings, the Bruins built up a seven-run edge in the
ninth behind a 5-for-6 afternoon by Grzecka and a base-clearing
three RBI double by Brandon Averill.

“We had stuff going in almost every inning,” Grzecka
said. “It’s a sign that you’re executing and that
you’re hitting well collectively, whereas they just had one
big inning.”

Silva once again came on in the bottom half of the ninth, but he
allowed three runs and was replaced by Susdorf, who got the final
two outs.