WALNUT, Calif. - The 30th-ranked UC San Diego baseball team surrendered a trio of big innings and dropped to Azusa Pacific University, 17-11, to open the 2015 NCAA Division II Championship West Regional Thursday night at Mazmanian Field. The six-team, double-elimination tournament is being hosted by top-seeded Cal Poly Pomona on the Mt. San Antonio College campus.
The game started just over three hours later than scheduled due to area rain, at 6:01 p.m., and was still played as expected in front of more than 20 professional scouts with junior right-handers Justin Donatella for the Tritons and Josh Staumont for the Cougars matched up. What morphed into a nearly four-hour marathon, with 28 combined runs on 28 combined hits, was indeed a surprise.
Fifth-seeded UCSD, the designated visitor, fell to 33-20 overall, while second-seeded Azusa Pacific improved to 33-18. The teams were meeting in the postseason for the very first time, as APU made its NCAA Championship debut a triumphant one in its first season of eligibility following a reclassification from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). They had split a pair of regular-season contests earlier this year, with each side winning at home.
The Tritons now face an elimination game on Friday, which will also have a later-than-originally-scheduled first pitch of 1:30 p.m. They would have played at 11 a.m., but the third and final game on the slate Thursday night, between CPP and sixth-seeded Point Loma, was unable to be started due to the altered timetable and still-ominous late-night weather forecast. Those two sides will meet at 10 a.m., with the loser turning right around and becoming UCSD's opponent. APU advanced into the winner's bracket against league foe California Baptist on Friday night at 8:30 p.m.
UCSD struck first in the opening half, as Brandon Shirley was hit by the very first pitch of the night by Staumont, moved to second on a one-out groundout, and scored on an RBI single up the middle by Michael Mann.
APU responded with a four-run inning against Donatella, the biggest single frame off of him this year as he had entered the game with just eight runs allowed in all. Three one-out hits knotted the score at 1-1, before Ryan Santana worked the count full and laced a two-run double to left. He came home on a Pablo O'Connor single to right.
UCSD put a pair of runners on in the third on a second Shirley hit-by-pitch and a five-pitch walk to Gradeigh Sanchez, but two ground balls got Staumont out of it.
A leadoff hit-by-pitch, steal and opposite-field RBI double into the gap in left center by Jordan Brower added to APU's cushion in the third before Donatella registered successive swinging strikeouts and a groundout to keep the deficit at four, 5-1.
The Tritons attempted another one-out rally in the fourth through an infield Justin Flatt single and walk to Troy Cruz (Chula Vista/Bonita Vista HS). This time, they cashed in, but only for one, as Tyler Howsley pushed a two-out RBI single up the middle before a pickoff killed the inning.
There were Cougars at the corners with just one away in the home fourth when Donatella got back-to-back strikeouts to notch the shutdown frame.
Consecutive walks by Staumont to Shirley and Sanchez at the top of the order began the fifth and forced a mound visit from the APU pitching coach. The Cougar ace recovered, however, to the tune of two strikeouts and a groundout.
Azusa Pacific broke it open with a seven-run fifth, giving it a 12-2 bulge. Senior second baseman Erik Lewis dove to his left to snatch a sharp grounder by Brower for a quiet start. After a walk and a single that dropped just beyond the reach of a diving Jack Larsen in right center, a passed ball moved both Cougars into scoring position. Michael Staudinger's single knocked them both in, and the inning kept going, prolonged by a pair of Triton infield errors.
UCSD pulled a pair back in the sixth, loading the bases ahead of a two-run double to left center by Shirley, but the Cougars continued to produce offensively with five in the home half.
To their credit, the Tritons battled their way to seven unanswered scores in the seventh and eighth, but it wasn't enough. Key hits included two more RBI singles by Howsley in each frame, and a two-run single to center by fellow sophomore Christian Leung in the seventh, when UCSD sent 10 men to the plate.
Donatella (9-3) allowed a season-high nine runs, seven of them earned, on nine hits, one walk and two hit-by-pitches over 4.1 innings. He struck out six, increasing his league-leading season total to 109. That matches Tim Shibuya's UCSD program record from 2011 for the Division II era. Donatella made a deft bare-handed stab of a comebacker to retire the first Cougar batter of the second, eventually completing his only perfect frame with a flyout and a called third strike.
Redshirt freshman right-hander John Erhardt threw the final two innings, setting down all six batters he faced, with four on strikes to equal his season high.
Shirley was on base in each of his first five plate appearances with a two-run double, two hit-by-pitches and two walks. Howsley wound up with career bests of four hits and three RBI (tied). Leung and Andrew Hobson had two hits apiece off the bench.
Staumont (6-2), a potential first-round selection in next month's Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft with his highly-regarded fastball, went 5.1 frames and gave up four runs on three hits, six walks and two hit-by-pitches. He fanned nine, adding to his Pacific West Conference-best mark, now also at 109. Staumont turned in a 1-2-3 second on two strikeouts and a groundout.
APU capitalized on four UCSD errors in all, with six of its 17 runs unearned.
Triton Notes: In its eighth appearance at the NCAA Division II Championship, UCSD is 18-15, including 4-5 under Eric Newman ... Brandon Shirley was back in the leadoff position in the Triton batting order for the first time since March 8 ... Shirley's two hit-by-pitches in his first two plate appearances gave him a team-high 12 for the season ... Justin Donatella's latest shutout streak extended to 16.0 innings before APU struck for its four in the first ... Twelve strikeouts tonight by its pitching staff extended UCSD's program-record total to 438 ... With nine more walks, UCSD increased its nation-leading season total to 287, a new Division II-era program standard, eclipsing the 278 from a year ago.
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