March 18, 2007
SAN DIEGO - San Diego State captured its third straight win over UCLA as it defeated the Bruins, 5-3, Sunday afternoon before 946 fans at Tony Gwynn Stadium. The sweep of the series with the Bruins allowed the Aztecs to improve to 15-11 on the year as they get ready to open their Mountain West Conference season next weekend.
UCLA (8-13) took an early lead in the contest as back-to-back singles with two outs in the second by Gabe Cohen and Cody Decker were followed by an RBI single up the middle off the bat of catcher Ryan Babineau. That run came off SDSU starter Lance Sewell (4-1), who allowed just one hit over the next four innings en route to collecting the win.
The Bruins' lead did not last long, however, as San Diego State rallied for three runs in the bottom of the same inning off UCLA starter Gavin Brooks. With one out, Brian Lucas singled to right and went to third on Cameron Johnson's hit up the middle. Garett Green's single brought Lucas home with the tying run and sent Johnson to third.
Chris Anderson then hit a fly ball to right that became a double when outfielder Gabe Cohen slipped while coming in on the ball. That hit gave the Aztecs the lead at 2-1 before Brandon Glover's two-out single drove in the third run of the inning. The runs were enough to send Brooks (1-3) to his third loss of the year.
SDSU upped its advantage to 4-1 two innings later on a walk to Anderson, single by Joe Spiers and Glover's second RBI single of the afternoon.
In the seventh, Sewell was replaced by junior Shane Kaufman, who gave up singles to the first two UCLA batters of the inning. A wild pitch moved both runners up a base and they scored on a ground out and sacrifice fly to narrow the home side's lead to 4-3.
San Diego State again responded to a Bruin rally by scoring in the bottom of the inning to increase it lead to two runs. Spiers reached on a fielding error by UCLA third baseman Eddie Murray, was sacrificed to second by Glover, went to third on a ground out by Josh Chasse and scored on a wild pitch by Bruin reliever Brandon Rustich.
The Bruins threatened in the top of the eighth, putting runners on first and third with one out on a walk and a single, but freshman Stephen Strasburg came on in relief and induced Ryan Babineau to hit into a 5-4-3 double play to end the threat.
Strasburg began the ninth by hitting Murray, but retired the next three hitters to nail down the win and pick up his third save of the season.
Glover finished the day with a pair of hits and two runs batted in while teammate Cameron Johnson also had a pair of singles and scored once.
San Diego State will now prepare for league play as it opens its 2007 Mountain West Conference season with a three-game series against Air Force beginning Thursday, Mar. 22, in Colorado Springs.