Thursday, February 19, 1998
Bruin bats overcome Lions’ hearts
BASEBALL: Awaiting Stanford showdown, No. 14 UCLA shuts down
late rally by LMU to win 10-4
By Vytas Mazeika
Daily Bruin Staff
When a baseball team allows a lot of hits but few runs, it’s
called scattering hits.
When a team allows few hits but a lot of runs, it’s called being
victimized by the hits.
On Wednesday, the UCLA pitching staff scattered the hits while
the Loyola Marymount staff was victimized by them.
In front of a crowd of 102 at Jackie Robinson Stadium, the No.
14 Bruins (7-4) took advantage of almost every chance they got
against the visiting Lions (6-5-1) to wind up with their
sixth-straight win by a score of 10-4. The dominant victory
provides the Bruins with some much needed confidence before a
showdown against top-ranked Stanford this weekend at home.
"It feels good," junior outfielder Eric Valent, who in the
bottom of the seventh hit his fourth home run in four games, said.
"Things are coming along. I think that’s our sixth win in a row.
We’re playing good. No errors on the board today. Our pitchers did
pretty good. Everything is just coming along pretty good."
The Bruin pitchers looked sharp early – especially sophomore
starter Ryan Reightley. Pitching only two innings in order to start
again on Sunday against the Cardinal, Reightley retired all six men
he faced in only 23 pitches.
Sophomore Gabe Crecion (1-0) pitched four innings of relief. He
allowed only five hits and an outstanding zero walks to lower from
an astronomical 32.40 ERA to a more respectable 7.45.
Only one of UCLA’s five pitchers suffered from control problems.
After pitching a perfect seventh inning, freshman hurler Charles
Merricks walked three and allowed one hit before being pulled in
the eighth inning — LMU’s best offensive inning by far.
"I praised the pitching staff," UCLA head coach Gary Adams said.
"I felt like that was the difference in the game up to that point.
We hadn’t walked anybody and they had. It was just a good outing by
our pitching staff."
UCLA’s pitching coach Tim Leary believes that experience gained
by this young pitching staff early in the season is finally
starting to show.
"Guys are getting better and as long as they keep improving
we’ll be good," Leary said. "There’s a lot of potential on this
team."
On the offensive end, LMU accumulated more hits than the Bruins
(8-7), but UCLA’s philosophy of swinging for the fences on
Wednesday translated into four extra-base hits – two triples (left
fielder Brett Nista, Valent) and two homers (first baseman Cassidy
Olson, Valent).
"What I think happened is we’ve been hitting these old,
water-logged balls for so long because of the rain in Cal," Nista,
who extended his team-high hitting streak to 12 with his triple,
explained. "We broke out some nice white ones today and everyone
was trying to see just how far they could hit it."
Another important statistic was the zero errors allowed by the
Bruin defense. For the first time in 11 games UCLA played flawless
defense.
* * *
On a down note, fifth-year senior Nick Theodorou will be out
three to six weeks with a torn right hamstring.
Theodorou, UCLA’s starting second baseman, suffered the injury
on Friday at Cal while sliding into second base on an attempted
steal.
Junior Jack Santora will take Theodorou’s place on the field for
the Bruins.