No. 1 UCLA baseball came from behind and won their series finale 9-6 against No. 13 Oregon to take the series at Jackie Robinson Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The Bruins pitching staff struggled to stop Oregon’s bats early, which had the Ducks eyeing a second win against the Bruins. This time, UCLA was able to Oregon runless in the final five innings of play and the Bruins bats came alive with nine of the team’s 13 hits coming in the final four innings.
UCLA starts on top
The Bruins started the series finale with the lead as junior outfielder Dean West slowly worked his way around the bases until junior outfielder Roman Martin batted a single to left field that sent West across home plate from third.
Game tied in the third
Junior right-handed pitcher Landon Stump allowed two singles in the second, but was able to keep Oregon from putting up their first run of the game in the top of the second. However, he struggled again in the third by giving up two hits and this time it was enough for the Ducks to tie the game up 1-1.
Ducks fly ahead
Oregon’s batters exploded in the fourth as redshirt senior left-handed pitcher Ian May, who came in relief for Stump, allowed a run, which would give the Ducks the lead. Senior right-handed pitcher Jack O’Connor stepped on the mound for May, but the situation got worse for UCLA as O’Connor gave up a run on a sacrifice fly, followed by a three-run homer to put the Bruins behind 6-1.
Two runs in the sixth
UCLA made a pitching change after the fourth and had freshman right-handed pitcher Angel Cervantes step up to allow one hit and no runs in his two innings of play. The Bruins took advantage of the scoreless innings with two runs of their own in the sixth.
Junior shortstop Roch Cholowsky started the bottom of the sixth out by blasting a home run to left-center. Later in the inning, redshirt junior outfielder Payton Brennan ran home after a fielding error on junior outfielder Will Gasparino’s double.
Completing the comeback
The Bruins used three different pitchers in the final three innings of play and none of them allowed a run to keep Oregon at six runs. Meanwhile, junior outfielder Phoenix Call made it home off of two hits in the bottom of the seventh to cut the Ducks lead to two-runs.
In the bottom of the eighth, Brennan scored his second-run of the game and shortly after, West blasted a go-ahead grand slam to put the Bruins up 9-6.
UCLA’s final series of the regular season starts on Thursday against Washington at Husky Ballpark in Seattle with an anticipated start time of 6:05 p.m. PT.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: UCLA baseball’s five-run eighth leads to series win over Oregon
Reporting by Ryan Lorenz, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
