Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a team to win a ballgame.
While Sunday was both Mother’s Day and No. 1 UCLA baseball’s (46-5, 26-1 Big Ten) Senior Day, two freshmen, a sophomore and a junior held No. 13 Oregon (36-14, 18-9) scoreless across the afternoon’s final five innings – while a junior delivered the decisive blow in the 9-6 series-winner at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
“I love these guys,” said junior left fielder Dean West. “These guys are my brothers for life. It just so happened for it to fall on me. I was playing for them.”
West went 0-for-4 Tuesday, 1-for-4 Friday and 0-for-5 Saturday.
But in a single day, the left fielder raised his batting average 12 points. And in a single swing, he completed the Bruins’ five-run comeback.
A pair of two-out singles and a hit-by-pitch loaded the bases for West, who promptly took right-hander Tanner Bradley’s 1-1 offering over the right field wall. The Woodland Hills, California, local’s career-high fifth home run of the season gave the Bruins a three-run lead – their first multi-run lead since Friday and West’s first longball since April 21.
“That (West’s grand slam) was awesome,” said redshirt junior right fielder Payton Brennan. “Dean did it at the plate and in the outfield today, so I’m super happy for him.”
Coincidentally, West – who’s listed at 5-foot-10 – scaled the left field wall in the top of the fourth to rob infielder Ryan Cooney’s grand slam, making his four-hit day all the more memorable.
“I knew there was going to definitely be a play at the wall,” West said. “I went back to the wall, … and then I saw the ball drift and go back over a wall. I timed it well, made a good play on it.”
On the mound, Angel Cervantes held the Ducks scoreless in the fifth and sixth, surrendering just a single. The freshman right-hander boasts a 0.90 ERA across his past 10 innings pitched after posting a 5.81 mark across his first 26.1 innings of the season.
Freshman right-hander Zach Strickland, sophomore right-hander Easton Hawk and junior right-hander Cal Randall all rebounded from Saturday outings where they each let Ducks waddle home – all turning in scoreless frames Sunday. Strickland improved to a 6-1 record while Hawk completed his 13th save – a conference-high mark and second in the nation.
Of the seven seniors celebrated before the game – redshirt senior southpaw Ian May; senior right-handers Michael Barnett, Finn McIlroy and Jack O’Connor; senior outfielder Jarrod Hocking; and redshirt junior southpaw Chris Grothues and Brennan – Brennan, the right fielder, appeared to best represent the four-year Bruins.
Brennan, who has one more year of NCAA eligibility if he chooses to pursue it, went 3-for-4 Sunday and 6-for-10 with a double and homer across the three-game set.
“(I) tried not to get too caught up in it,” Brennan said. “My parents came out. I love my mom, so I wanted to play good for her, but I played my game.”
Graduate students outfielder Micheal Cunningham and right-hander Chris Aldrich, who have both dealt with injuries throughout their Westwood stints, were not recognized during the ceremony.
Landon Stump made his 13th start of the season, but it was his shortest since March 29. The junior right-hander was pulled after just 2.2 frames.
Stump tossed a career-high six shutout innings against Rutgers on April 12 but has since failed to make it through five innings in each of his four starts – including a three-inning outing April 26 when he gave up five runs and a 3.2-frame start where he gave up seven runs May 3.
Add in Barnett, who allowed four runs across his 4.1 innings against the Ducks on Saturday, and Savage said a reevaluation of the weekend rotation could be in order.
Junior catcher Blake Balsz, who will miss the 2026 campaign due to injury, occupied the first base coach’s box after assistant coach Griffin Barnes was ejected last night and forced to miss the subsequent Sunday game.
“He’s (Balsz) a baseball guy through and through,” Savage said. “He knows the verbiage, he knows all the signs, he knows what to communicate with guys. … He’s got a really good pulse on that. I know he doesn’t want to make that as a living. He wants to get back and play next year.”
Balsz, who spends most games cheering from a baseball bucket and being the first one to greet his teammates as they walk off the field, is typically on construction helmet duty – placing the hard shell on a Bruin after they slug a home run and before they rush past their teammates down the dugout.
With the backstop meandering near first base, someone else would have to man the white cap labeled with a blue UCLA logo.
But West, who said he was still in the process of acknowledging that his grand slam – his first ever – was real, added that he could not recall who took Balsz’s place in the dugout amid his mental blackout.
“I don’t even know,” West said. “I don’t remember anything.”
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