The UC Irvine Baseball team (1-0) opened their 2022 campaign by defeating the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns 7-4 at Russo Park in Lafayette, Louisiana on Friday, Feb. 18 at 4 p.m.
At the top of the first inning, UCI had a chance to score early with the bases loaded. Redshirt senior utility Ben Fitzgerald made a sacrificial bunt to get sophomore infielder Woody Hadeen, who was in third base, a chance to score. However, Fitzgerald was thrown out ending the inning.
The top of the second inning was an eventful inning for UCI. Louisiana’s senior right-handed pitcher Drew Shifflet, who had already thrown 31 pitches in the first inning, struggled throughout the second inning.
Shifflet started the second inning strong with a 1-2-3 strikeout to Anteater redshirt sophomore infielder Connor McGuire. However, redshirt sophomore outfielder Luke Spillane connected on a fastball down to the middle to drive in a double.
Graduate student infielder Taishi Nakawake followed up the double with a home run to give UCI an early 2-0 lead. Nakawake had a huge impact on the game scoring one run, two hits and three RBI’s.
After the home run, Shifflet walked Hadeen for his second walk of the night. Next up for the Anteaters was redshirt sophomore outfielder Nathan Church. Church connected on a deep hit to the left side of the field, which was caught by junior outfielder Heath Hood.
Shifflet continued to struggle as he walked redshirt junior infielder Justin Torres, however, he was able to pull it together striking out sophomore catcher Thomas McCaffrey to end the inning. The bottom of the second inning was the beginning of a comeback for Louisiana. It started with UCI redshirt senior pitcher Michael Frias throwing to freshman infielder Kyle Debarge. Debarge made his collegiate debut and had four at-bats, one run, and one hit.
Senior infielder Jonathan Brandon hit a two run homer to tie the game two-a-piece. Frias then composed himself to get the next two batters out to keep the score tied going into the third inning.
Shifflet’s had 59 pitches through the first two innings and his struggles continued in the top of the third. He started out the inning by striking out graduate student infielder Jacob Castro for his fourth strikeout of the game.
The bottom of the third was highlighted by senior outfielder Connor Kimple. With two outs, Kimple hit a solo home run to give Louisiana their first lead of the night, 3-2. Sophomore outfielder Carson Roccaforte continued the momentum as he also hit a solo home run to add to Louisiana’s lead 4-2.
UCI struggled in the top of the fourth as Talley struck out the first three batters, Hadeen, Church, and Torres to give him a quick 1-2-3 inning. Frias followed Talley’s efforts with a quick 1-2-3 of his own keeping the score 4-2 in favor of Louisiana heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.
The top of the 5th inning began to see the demise for Louisiana. It started with McCaffrey connecting with a base hit that landed him on first base. Castro then connected with a ground ball single towards shortstop to give UCI two runners on base. Fitzgerald connected with a well-placed bunt advancing to first and loading the bases.
McGuire drove the ball to deep left field for a three run double as UCI took the lead 5-4 with McGuire staying on second base. Spillane bunted the ball, advancing to first. Nakawake advanced on a base hit RBI single positioning Mcguire to score and increasing the Anteater lead to 6-4. Church hit into a groundout, but it paid off as Spillane advanced to home, giving UCI a 7-4 lead. The rest of the game went scoreless with UCI dominating most of the game.
UCI improves to 1-0 on the season and will look to keep that momentum going as they face Louisiana again February 19th at 12:00 pm in the second of a three game series.
Marcos Gonzalez is a Sports Staff Writer. He can be reached at marcosg9@uci.edu.