Thursday, January 29, 1998
Players look forward to trip to Hawaii after first victory
BASEBALL: Team mixes starting players in face off against
Rainbows
By Vytas Mazeika
Daily Bruin Staff
The No. 18 UCLA baseball team will be rewarded for their
season-opening victory on Saturday with a trip to Hawaii.
Actually, the Bruins were scheduled to make their first road
trip of the season to Hawaii a long time ago. But the UCLA coaches
and players wouldn’t mind believing that after their hard fought
6-5 victory over Cal State Dominguez, the team deserves a
vacation.
It won’t be all fun and games when the Bruins (1-0) travel to
the islands. Starting today, UCLA will play a three-game series
against the Rainbows (5-0) that will be used to determine the
progress of many freshmen and a stable lineup.
UCLA head coach Gary Adams will implement several batting
lineups to figure out which players can provide the Bruins with the
most runs.
"We’re going to play different combinations in our games against
Hawaii," Adams said. "We may mix it up a bit based on the health of
some of he people, but basically we’re not going to go with the
same nine guys in the three games."
Senior catcher Casey Cloud will start today, but with three more
catchers on the roster, Adams will continue to rotate several
players at that position.
Left field is another position where several players will be
tested out in the early season. True-freshman Matt Pearl started on
Saturday, but freshman Bill Scott and sophomore Michael Hynes will
both get shots to claim the left field spot.
Pitching-wise, sophomore Rob Henkel will start on Thursday, with
freshman Chad Cislak following on Friday and sophomore Jon
Reightley finishing off on Saturday.
Although they are not expected to pitch over five innings with
the season having only started and the strategy being to slowly
build up their arm strength, Adams believes that each of these
pitchers should be able to throw complete games within the next
three weeks.
The Rainbows may prove a worthy test for the young Bruin
pitchers as Hawaii is batting .335 and average 11 runs per
game.
Hawaii catcher Lars Hansen leads the way with a .538 batting
average and 12 RBIs. Junior lefthander Troy Yosimasu leads the
starters with a 3.65 ERA and 10 strikeouts in 12.1 innings of
work.