SAN DIEGO, Calif. - In their last chance to salvage the series against University of San Diego (USD) the University of California, Riverside (UCR) baseball team came out strong to catch an early lead in hopes of snagging a victory in the fourth and final game of the four-game series.
 
Travis Bohall started things off for the Highlanders with a single to left center. He quickly stole second to put himself in scoring position. Bohall advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored off of a sacrifice fly, in order to get UC Riverside on the board in the top of the first inning. Tucker Juline took the mound for the Highlanders, putting in an impressive five innings, letting up just two runs off of two homers in the fourth inning. Juline's offense backed him up in the top of the fifth, as Dylan Orick smacked a 2-RBI homer to right field to put the Highlanders up 3-2. Nate Webb got on base after getting hit by a pitch and advanced to third on a base hit from Joey Nicolai. Anthony Mata walked to load the bases and Ely Stuart singled to right field to send Webb home. UCR finished the fifth inning up 4-2. 
 
In the bottom of the seventh inning the the Toreros began their comeback, scoring a run off of a single to left center cutting UCR's lead to 4-3. UC Riverside would hold them off until the bottom of the ninth inning when USD scored on a sacrifice fly to tie the game 4-4 before heading into extra innings.
 
In the bottom of the tenth the Toreros loaded the bases and scored the winning run on a walked batter, taking the game 5-4.
 
On the series, Head Coach Justin Johnson said, "There was a lot of positive takeaways from this weekend. Our starting pitching, in just week two, really extended deeper into the games which was great. Everyone went five innings or more, except Jacobs who went 4 2/3. It was really awesome to see our starting pitching get deeper into games and then get into some of our bigger guys in the back of the bullpen."
 
Looking ahead to next week Coach Johnson said, "We are looking to improve on executing, little things cost us today's game.  We really are just happy to be back and play the game. We are thrilled to get these seven games in ahead of conference and get a lot of different experiences under our belts, especially for some of the younger guys."
 
The Highlanders begin Big West play next weekend, opening the conference season on the road against Cal State Bakersfield with a four-game series beginning March 19 at 6 PM.