Riverside—Less than 24 hours after dropping a 15-9 decision to CSU Bakersfield, the UC Riverside Baseball Team decided that turnabout was fair play, evening the series against the Roadrunners with an 11-2 victory at the Plex Saturday night.

Alex Fagalde remained perfect on the mound, improving to 4-0 on the season, and lowering his ERA to 1.80, by scattering six hits over six innings and striking out five.  He allowed two runs on the day, the first of which came plateward in the top of the first on an RBI single by Max Carter.

The Highlanders (11-7) tied the game up in the bottom of the second on a Tony Gudino single up the middle which scored AJ Sawyer from second.

It remained a tie game until the bottom of the fourth when UC Riverside erupted for five runs off of Bakersfield starter Mahlik Jones (1-2). Jones' defense didn't help him out any as only three of the six runs he allowed in the game were earned. His day ended in that fateful fourth, as Garrett Nimmo came on in relief with two outs.

Nimmo recorded the third out of the inning, but the Highlanders touched him for five runs over the next 1.1 innings of play to put the game out of reach.

UC Riverside Head Coach Troy Percival pulled Fagalde in the top of the seventh after the senior was hit on his pitching hand by a come-backer off the bat of Jake Ortega. Fagalde was already at 96 pitches, and the decision to remove him was purely precautionary.

Kevin West came on in relief and pitched two scoreless innings, and Ryan Lillie closed the door with a scoreless top of the ninth.

Daniel Martinez led the offensive charge for UCR, going 4 for 5 with five RBIs.

The Highlanders and Roadrunners (9-5) play game three of their three-game series at The Plex on Sunday, March 19 beginning at 1 pm PT.