M. baseball: Baseball fights but falls at regionals

For the UCLA baseball team, the NCAA Regionals were a tale of
two teams.

The third-seeded Bruins dominated second-seeded Oklahoma twice,
but followed each win by falling to first-seeded Florida.

And thus ended the Bruins’ season and the career of coach
Gary Adams.

“One thing I’m certainly not going to miss is
losing,” said Adams following his 30th and final season
coaching UCLA. “It’s a shame that this team had to lose
its last game because it had such a great season.

“I just told the team, “˜Don’t cry, be glad it
happened.'”

Over a hectic weekend, including four games in three days, the
Bruins’ (35-29) fortunes wavered up and down with each
contest.

Three of the four games were blowouts, but that fourth game is
the one that will linger in the Bruins’ memories.

Fresh off a 9-1 romp over the No. 20 Sooners (38-24) the
previous night behind a sparkling Casey Janssen start and first
baseman Wes Whisler’s three-run bomb, on Saturday UCLA played
in its only tight contest of the weekend, a tough 4-3 loss to the
Gators.

Whisler threw a solid game that would have been even better if
not for a bad bounce in the fifth inning. The No. 21 Gators (43-20)
had just taken the lead, 2-1, and with two outs Florida’s
T.J. Smith hit a chopper that took a bad bounce that caused
shortstop Ryan McCarthy to miss it. On the very next pitch Ben
Harrison went deep, providing the Gators a 4-1 cushion.

“In hindsight, I wish (McCarthy) would have charged it so
it didn’t have a chance to make a bad bounce,” Adams
said. “But he’s made that play before and with a normal
hop he would have had it.”

UCLA pulled it to 4-3 on left fielder Billy Susdorf’s solo
shot and third baseman Preston Griffin’s RBI single. Then the
ninth inning rolled around, and it appeared some more of the Bruin
magic that has popped up so often in the late innings this year
would reappear.

With one out, pinch hitter Brandon Averill singled and Susdorf
bunted for a hit on a would-be sacrifice.

However, designated hitter Brett McMillan hit into a game-ending
double play to end any possible rally.

UCLA had no time to dwell on the loss, though, as it had to
quickly regroup for the elimination game, which immediately
followed.

“Our guys were really down after losing 4-3, so I knew we
needed to talk,” Adams said. “We met in the left field
corner, and I said, “˜Well, we’re in a corner and
it’s time to scratch and claw our way
through.'”

Impressively, UCLA rebounded in outstanding fashion, throttling
the Sooners again with a season-high 17 runs.

There were a litter of offensive stars ““ McCarthy homered
twice and had four RBI, right fielder Matt Thayer also went deep
and collected three RBI, Denove went 3-for-3 with four RBI, and
Griffin had two hits and scored four runs. David Johnson picked up
the easy win, his fourth of the season.

“It was a drainer because it was so hot,” catcher
Chris Denove said in the post-game press conference. “After
the first game we lost by one, we all knew what we wanted to do in
the next game. We just came out and took care of
business.”

Following their most prolific offensive performance, the Bruins
showed up Sunday with one of their biggest duds.

The Gators exploded early, putting up a seven-run second inning
and coasting from there to an 11-0 victory. The Bruins only managed
four hits and no walks.

Despite the sour ending, UCLA’s season will go down as a
success. It effectively silenced the doubters who expected nothing
from the team before the year, first by making the postseason, then
by taking two games in the regionals.

Most importantly, the season sent off Adams in a fittingly
positive fashion after 30 years at UCLA’s helm.

“I’ve always made a point not to have a favorite
team,” Adams said. “But this year’s team will be
my most memorable one.

“They did everything that any coach would have wanted them
to do to send him out with good feelings about his players and the
journey that he’s had.”