MARY CIECEK/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior catcher
Josh Arhart slides into third base against
Pepperdine.
By Jeff Agase and Dylan
Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The fielding troubles that hindered the UCLA baseball team last
weekend when they were swept by Kansas State have continued to
cripple the squad.
The Bruins (25-17) committed a season-high seven errors and
dropped their fifth consecutive game, losing 10-2 at Long Beach
State (27-13) Tuesday night.
“It was pretty brutal,” senior second baseman Josh
Canales said. “It was ugly.”
So brutal and so ugly that UCLA Head Coach Gary Adams made the
team run for 45 minutes after the game.
“We deserved it,” Canales said.
Adams, who didn’t wish to elaborate on the matter, said,
“We call it a little conditioning.”
The Bruins started the game lackadaisically, allowing four runs
in the first inning. In the second, they gave up three more, all
unearned.
Long Beach’s Bruin-aided rally went on in the fourth as
two more 49er runs scored as a result of UCLA errors.
Over the course of the rest of the game, the 49ers scored only
once more ““ another unearned run in the seventh ““ but
UCLA’s offense could never make up the difference.
The Bruins mustered only five hits throughout the contest but
still managed to leave nine runners on base, as compared to 13 base
knocks and eight runners stranded by the Beach.
“It was probably our worst game of the year,” senior
centerfielder Matt Pearl said. “Nothing went
right.”
While the Bruin hitting was silent, the 49er bats were making
noise. Sophomore Mike Kunes (3-1) got the start but didn’t
last two full innings after surrendering seven runs (four of them
earned) on eight hits.
The beacon in the darkness was freshman Mike Castillo, who
stepped in for Brandon Averill in the fifth and went two innings
without allowing a run, the only Bruin pitcher to do so.
“Mike threw strikes and threw well,” UCLA Pitching
Coach Gary Adcock said. “But on the same token, these games
are easier to pitch in.”
The loss extends the Bruin losing streak, with the possibility
of the wound opening wider this weekend in a three-game conference
series at No. 6 USC.
Adams hopes a loss of this magnitude can light a fire under his
team for what may prove to be a season-defining series.
“We weren’t ready to play,” Adams said.
“I’m glad we’re playing USC. (A good performance)
is a quick way to get better.”