Baseball Completes Sweep Of #21 UC Irvine As Birthday Boy Kyle Boudreau Drives In Game Winner

Saturday, March 30

2:00 PM

UC Riverside

UC Irvine

Photo by: Gabriel L. Acosta

Baseball Completes Sweep Of #21 UC Irvine As Birthday Boy Kyle Boudreau Drives In Game Winner

3/30/2013 5:08:00 PM | Baseball

Riverside—The UC Riverside Baseball Team made it a clean sweep of #21 UC Irvine Saturday as Kyle Boudreau celebrated his birthday in style by breaking up a 2-2 tie with an RBI single in the bottom of the eighth to lead the Highlanders to a 3-2 victory (Box Score/Video Highlghts).

The win was the fourth in a row for UC Riverside, and the team's seventh win in a row at home. It also marked only the second-ever series sweep of the 'Eaters by UCR, and the first-ever 3-0 start to the Big West Conference season by the Highlanders.

UCR jumped on Anteaters starter Andrew Morales in the bottom of the first as Devyn Bolasky doubled down the left field line with one out, and Clayton Prestridge singled to left scoring Bolasky. Prestridge tried to stretch his base knock into a double, but the relay throw was in plenty of time to retire him.

UC Irvine tied things up in the top of the second off of UC Riverside starter Ben Doucette. After giving up a lead-off single to Ronnie Shaeffer that caromed off of his leg, Doucette erased Shaeffer with a double-play ball off the bat of Taylor Sparks.

The Anteaters countered with three straight singles, however, and Grant Palmer's base hit to center scored Jerry McClanahan to tie the game at one.

Doucette continued to bend but not break allowing a single in the third, a double in the fourth, and a pair of singles in the fifth, but each time he was able to work out of the jam. The fifth inning ended in spectacular fashion as Connor Spencer singled to left with Scott Gottschling on second. Stopping at third never crossed Gottschling's mind as he rounded the bag, but he was gunned down at the plate by Devyn Bolasky for the final out of the inning (Listen To Ghizal Hasan's Call Of The Play).

Irvine finally pushed across their second run of the day in the top of the sixth as Shaeffer led off the inning with a single up the middle and advanced to second on a wild pitch. A sac bunt moved him to third with one out out, and two batters later, Rabago singled up the middle to make it 2-1 'Eaters.

UCI didn't stay on top for long, though, as Prestridge, David Andriese and Phil Holinsworth opened the bottom of the sixth with three straight singles tying the game at two.

Zach Varela (1-0) took over for Doucette to start the seventh and allowed just one hit in his two innings of work.

Mitch Merten (0-1) came on in relief of Morales with one out in the seventh retiring the first two batters he faced, but he wasn't so fortunate in the bottom of the eighth.

Andriese lifted a pop up down the right field line to start the inning, and it landed just fair as three converging Anteaters were unable to track it down. The junior wound up with a double on the play, and advanced to third on a fly out to center by Holinsworth. That brought the birthday boy Boudreau to the plate, and he poked a seeing-eye single through the right side of a drawn in infield for the game-winner (Listen To The Game-Winning Hit).

Trevor Frank took to the mound for the Highlanders in the top of the ninth, and he ran his streak of consecutive innings without giving up an earned run to 18.2 with a scoreless ninth. It was the sixth save of the season for the senior, and his third of the series (Listen To The Final Out).

The Highlanders have two mid-week games this week as they travel to San Diego State on Monday for a 6 pm first pitch. On Tuesday it is the Aztecs turn to hit the road as UC Riverside hosts them at The Plex for another 6 pm start. UCR then travels to Northridge over the weekend for a three-game Big West Conference series against the Matadors.