The UC Irvine Anteaters baseball team (16-20, 7-9) took on the RV UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (24-11, 11-5) and fell short 7-3 at Anteater Ballpark on April 17.
The game opened with a double by UC Santa Barbara senior catcher Nate Vargas that brought home sophomore outfielder Liam Barrett and junior outfielder Colin Beazizo. That then left the Gauchos in the lead with the score at 2-0 at the top of the first.
Gaucho sophomore outfielder Rowan Kelly then came in with a hit that gave Vargas the ability to score and close out the first half of the inning with the Gauchos up by three.
With three successful hits and runs by the Gauchos, the Anteaters hoped to score high in the first inning as well.
Anteater redshirt junior infielder Frankie Carney quickly came in with a hit that gave sophomore outfielder Daniel Polasek a run that put UC Irvine in the game.
Later in the inning, UC Irvine claimed another point that ended the first inning with the Anteaters behind by only one.
At the top of the second, the score stood at 3-2 and remained the same for the rest of the inning because neither team had a hit or run.
For the Gauchos, the third inning was successful, as they earned three points from just two hits. The first was by Kelly and the second by Beazizo — who brought home two of his teammates.
By the beginning of the fourth inning, UC Irvine was down by four.
Unfortunately, the Anteaters had two left on the bases but scored no runs in the bottom of the fourth, keeping them behind.
With the score at 6-2, UC Irvine hoped to close the gap going into the fifth inning. This did not happen because neither team had any runs.
The Anteaters still remained behind, so the sixth inning was an opportunity to jump back into the game. But, once again, both teams were unable to score.
At the top of the seventh, there was another run for UC Santa Barbara by senior infielder Corey Nunez who homered to left field, pushing the Gauchos ahead even further.
In the bottom of the seventh and in the eighth, there were no additional runs scored by either team as the final inning was approaching.
The last and final run of the game was in the bottom of the ninth for the Anteaters, where sophomore catcher Efren Ortega scored and ended the game with a loss for the Anteaters at 7-3.
The next day, UC Irvine was successful and took home the 6-3 win which made both teams even going into the third game of the series.
Cayley Mazer is a Sports Staff Writer. She can be reached at cmazer@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor, Tracy Sandoval
