Baseball: Baseball unable to jolt past Shockers

Coming off Sunday’s dramatic win over USC, UCLA fell to
Wichita State 6-4 in a crucial non-league game Tuesday night.

A win over the 17th-ranked Shockers would have helped solidify
the Bruins NCAA Tournament resume heading into the season’s
final stretch.

Coach Gary Adams put the team’s loss into perspective.

“We take every loss very hard,” Adams said.
“It was great to win on Sunday, but that’s over with.
We’re not in a position to be satisfied.”

UCLA starter David Johnson continued his impressive pitching in
non-league games with a career-high seven strikeouts in 5-1/3
innings.

“Johnson pitched an outstanding game,” Adams said.
“He deserved a better fate than he received
tonight.”

The Bruins’ 4-0 lead began to crumble in the sixth inning.
Johnson left the game with a 4-2 lead after walking two batters,
giving up a seeing-eye infield hit, and a two-run single.

After Wichita State made it 4-4 with a two-run seventh,
Shockers’ star Drew Moffitt finished the rally with an
eighth-inning single to drive in the winning run off of
UCLA’s Kyle Wilson.

Offensively, the Bruins were able to muster four runs against
highly-touted pitcher Mike Pelfrey on six hits and a collection of
Shocker errors .

The Bruins’ offensive surge came in a three-run fifth
inning highlighted by shortstop Ryan McCarthy’s two-out
single to drive in center fielder Jarrad Page. The bases-loaded
single extended McCarthy’s hitting streak to 13 games.

Pelfrey did not allow a run after the fifth inning and fanned 11
Bruins in the process.

The Bruins’ bullpen was unable to match Pelfrey’s
strong effort.

The Bruins used seven relief pitchers, including three in both
the seventh and eighth innings, despite coming off a taxing series
against USC.

“We pitched those guys a lot over the weekend, and this is
a tough part of our schedule, so our pitching is a little thin
right now,” Adams said.

The Bruins were unable to close the door on the Shockers and
fell victim to a comeback inspired by the 4,000 fans in attendance
at Eck Stadium.

In a game dominated by baseball’s proverbial “little
ball” strategy, the Shockers seemed to get all the bounces in
the late innings.

“Truth be known, we played a better game than the other
team tonight,” Adams said. “We didn’t make any
mistakes on defense, but just didn’t do enough to pull out
the victory.”