CHICO, Calif. ? The UC San Diego baseball team split a doubleheader with 12th-ranked Chico State on Friday at Nettleton Stadium. The Tritons lost game one by a 5-2 score, but rallied to win the nightcap 10-7. In the first game, Chico State scored three in the second and two in the eighth to cruise to the win. Vance Albitz, Chris Franco and John Roth each had two hits. In the second game, UCSD saw a 4-1 lead quickly dissolve into a 7-4 Wildcat lead. In the sixth, UCSD would bat-around and score six times as Matt Lawson delivered the clutch bases-loaded double to give the Tritons the 10-7 lead. Derek Barham pitched two scoreless innings to earn his seventh save of the season. UCSD is now 30-15, 19-7 CCAA, while the Wildcats are 36-9, 17-9 CCAA.
Pitching at home for perhaps the final time in his stellar four-year career, Wildcats ace Nick Bryant shut out UC San Diego through the first seven innings and earned the victory to improve to 8-0 on the season.
With the Wildcats leading 3-0, Bryant ran into a little trouble in the eighth, however. Left fielder Casey Smyth had a fly ball glance off the top of his glove, and then a ground ball hit the foot of first-base umpire Dave Baldwin. The ball would likely have been scooped up by second baseman Robby Scott had it not hit Baldwin. Instead, it turned into a base hit.
Jonathan Erickson's sacrifice bunt advanced the runners to second and third, and Vance Albitz plated one run with an RBI single to finish Bryant's day. Lefty Jason Maes came on to strike out the national home run leader, Matt Cantele, and then Marcus Martinez recorded the final four outs of the game for his 11th save of the season.
Lorin Nakagawa had staked the Wildcats to a 3-0 lead with a three-run homer in the second inning. Chico State added two more runs in the bottom of the eighth on Aaron Demuth's two-run double. Demuth and Luna finished with two hits apiece to lead the Wildcats.
Daniel Simmons took the loss for UC San Diego, falling to 6-3. He allowed four runs on seven hits in seven innings of work. Albitz, Chris Franco and John Roth paced the Tritons offense with two hits apiece.
In the nightcap, the Wildcats banged out 14 hits against four UC San Diego pitchers, but stranded 13 runners on base, including seven in scoring position. The Tritons, meanwhile, took advantage of almost every opportunity, stranding only four runners. They also drove in four runs with two out.
The biggest of those two-out hits came off the bat of Matt Lawson, whose bases-clearing double completed UC San Diego's six-run sixth and gave the Tritons the lead for good.
Franco and Roth each had two more hits and an RBI in the game. Erickson drove in a pair of runs. Tim Strombel (3-1) got the win despite giving up two runs on three hits in his only inning of work.
With the threat of rain arriving on Saturday, UCSD and Chico State will begin the doubleheader at 10:00 a.m.
