March 7, 2003
San Diego - For the second consecutive night, San Diego State surrendered an early five-run inning and was forced to play catch-up, this time falling to UC Irvine, 10-5, at Tony Gwynn Stadium Friday evening. The loss was the fourth straight for the Aztecs, who saw their season record fall to 6-13. The Anteaters moved to 5-11 with the victory.
After giving up five in the first to Oral Roberts on Thursday, SDSU allowed UC Irvine to score five times on seven hits in the second inning on Friday. Starter Mike Moat, who took the loss to fall to 1-2, entered the evening with a minuscule 0.86 earned run average, but was touched up for eight runs (seven earned) over seven innings.
San Diego State did not help itself defensively, committing four errors on the night that led to three unearned runs including two charged to reliever Drew Jenson in the ninth.
UCI starting pitcher Glenn Swanson (1-2) allowed just two earned runs on two hits over five innings to record his first win of the year. Michael Koehler went the final four for the Anteaters, shutting out the Aztecs on one hit and picking up his first save.
SDSU opened the contest with a run in the first to take a short-lived lead. Peter Stonard's grounder to second scored Anthony Gwynn, who had singled with one out and advanced to second on a walk to Jordan Swaydan.
After Irvine put up their five spot in the second, SDSU answered back with a pair in the bottom of the inning to cut the lead to 5-3. Garrett Cook's RBI double scored Jake McLintock from first, and Cook scored later on Ryan Wilson's ground out to second.
The Aztecs got within a run in the fourth when back-to-back Anteater errors put men on first and second, and Cook drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.
UCI got a run back in the top of the sixth to make it 6-4, but Landon Burt drove in run with an RBI single in the bottom of the inning to again narrow the gap to a single run. However, that was as close as the Aztecs would get, as Irvine scored four times over the final three frames to wrap up the win.
San Diego State and UC Irvine continue their three-game weekend series on Saturday (March 8) at 4:00 p.m. at Anteater Ballpark. The scene will then shift back to Tony Gwynn Stadium for the series finale on Sunday (March 9) at 1:00 p.m.
Each of those contests can be heard live on the internet at www.goaztecs.com with Alan Horton calling the play-by-play. Saturday's pregame show begins at 3:50 p.m. (PST).
UC Irvine 10, San Diego State 5UCI 050 010 202 - 10 16 4SDS 120 101 000 - 5 3 4Moat, Jenson (8) and SwaydanSwanson, Koehler (6) and WagnerW - Swanson (1-2)L - Moat (1-2)Sv - NoneHR - NoneAtt. - 957Time - 3:13