STOCKTON, Calif. - The 26th-ranked UC San Diego baseball team suffered a difficult 3-2 defeat in 10 innings to Cal State Dominguez Hills in an elimination game Saturday at the 2015 California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Championship. This year's tournament was held at neutral-site Klein Family Field on the campus of the University of the Pacific.
Second-seeded UCSD dropped to 33-19 overall. Fourth-seeded CSUDH (30-24) moved on to face top-seeded and 18th-ranked regular-season champion Cal Poly Pomona (39-14) at night, with the Broncos adding their first-ever tournament banner, 4-0. The Toros would have needed to beat them twice. Tritons Justin Donatella and Jack Larsen were chosen to the 12-player All-Tournament Team following that contest.
UCSD will await Sunday night's announcement of the 48-team field for the 2015 NCAA Division II Championship. The West Regional consists of six teams. The Tritons were fifth in Wednesday's most recent official NCAA poll. The selection show can be viewed live starting at 7 p.m. on NCAA.com.
As the designated visitor, UCSD batted first, and after Toro starter Albert Flores registered three ground-ball outs on nine pitches in a perfect opening frame, Trevor Scott followed suit initially in the bottom half, getting a pair of groundouts on three tosses. Back-to-back singles, however, with an outfield error tacked on to the latter, plated the contest's first run for CSUDH.
The Tritons came right out and loaded the bases in the second on two singles and a fielder's choice, but Flores remarkably wriggled out of it unscathed with a pair of strikeouts, the second one called, around a foulout. They squandered a second leadoff Larsen single in the fourth, this time putting two men aboard, with Flores rallying to produce a strikeout and comebacker to keep it 1-0.
The Toros doubled their advantage in the fourth on an RBI single to left by Daniel Matienzo. With runners at the corners, third baseman Troy Cruz limited the damage by charging a slow chopper and completing the tough play to first to end the inning.
The Tritons finally broke through in the fifth, ignited by two opposite-field hits, as Tyler Howsley doubled into the gap in right center, and Erik Lewis singled to left. Justin Flatt worked a four-pitch walk to load the bases with nobody out a second time on the day. Following a pitching change, a 3-2-3 double play was deflating somewhat, but freshman Tyler Plantier (Poway/Del Norte HS) fought off a 2-2 offering and dropped a two-out, two-run single to the opposite field in between the rightfielder and second baseman, tying the game at 2-2.
Scott had to work to register the shutdown frame, but got it done with a big swinging strikeout with Toros at first and second on a two-out walk and a single. He then dodged a potential jam in the sixth after a four-pitch leadoff walk.
The bottom of the eighth began with an infield error putting the leadoff man aboard for CSUDH. Senior right-hander Javier Carrillo, Jr., struck out the next batter, but Matienzo poked a single through the left side on the very next pitch. Joshua Flores appeared to do the same thing, and his single clearly would have scored the go-ahead run, but Tyler Howsley made an incredible diving play toward the hole to keep the ball on the infield. The sophomore shortstop then doubled the pleasure as Kevin Lenik had rounded the third-base bag too hard, tossing to Cruz to start a rundown that resulted in the second out. Senior left-hander Chad Rieser entered the fray and got pinch-hitter Kevin Lugo swinging.
The Tritons couldn't capitalize on a one-out error in the ninth, even getting a two-out walk by Lewis before a flyout.
UCSD got in and out of a huge pickle in the home ninth. The Toros' No. 9 hitter, Adrian Guzman, drew a four-pitch walk to lead off, with Cruz moving over from third to take over for Rieser. Brandon Polizzi coaxed himself a six-pitch base on balls, to bring up CCAA Most Valuable Player Kamran Young. Cruz managed to come back from a 2-1 deficit to fan the senior rightfielder swinging, but that brought up Brady Conlan, who was 3-for-4 to that point in the game. Conlan hit a ground ball to new second baseman Tim White, but the ball was hit too slowly to complete the double play, as the Tritons had to settle for the fielder's choice, with Toros remaining at the corners for Lenik, who also walked. With the bases full and the tourney in the balance, Cruz started Juan Avena off with a ball before getting him to fly out to Gradeigh Sanchez in left.
Sanchez opened the 10th with a solid opposite-field single to left. With a 2-0 count to Larsen, CSUDH brought Lenik in from center field to pitch. He threw five straight pitches outside of the strike zone, before White bunted a 3-0 offering back to him too hard, to knock out Sanchez at third. That putout was negated by a double steal, and Brandon Shirley ultimately drew a five-pitch walk, but a 5-2-3 double play excruciatingly ended the threat.
Lewis, at third for Cruz, combined with Michael Mann on a tough play to begin the home 10th, diving to his left before firing to his first baseman. That's when cruel irony kicked in, however, as Howsley, who saved the game with his earlier defensive play, committed an error to put Jesse Oropeza on. Johnny Palmer then lifted a fly ball high and deep toward left center, that despite his best effort, evaded Shirley, with the ball skipping away and allowing pinch-runner Forrest Riley to come all the way around from first with the decider. Cruz (5-5) took the loss.
Scott went 6.2 innings and allowed two runs, one of them earned, on eight hits and two walks. The senior left-hander struck out two. He posted a perfect frame in the third, after working past a one-out single in the second through a strike-him-out, throw-him-out double play. Scott left with a man at first and two gone in the seventh, when Carrillo, Jr., came on to induce a fielder's choice groundout.
Larsen went 2-for-3 with two walks. Plantier was 2-for-4 with his two RBI. Lewis started seven 4-3 putouts at second base, including three in the first, and had nine assists and one putout in all from two positions on the infield.
Flores gave up two runs on five hits and two walks over four-plus frames. The right-hander struck out five. He had a pair of 1-2-3 innings in the first and third. Fellow junior Jeffrey Gogue took over for 3.1 innings, setting UCSD down in order in the sixth with two strikeouts, again in the seventh, and then combining with TyRay Gatewood for a third straight in the eighth. He wound up with four punch-outs.
Toro pitching retired 11 Tritons in succession between Plantier's hit and a one-out infield error in the ninth.
Lenik (1-0) was 2-for-4 with a walk, while also picking up his first mound decision of the year. Matienzo and Flores added two hits apiece, while Conlan scored twice.
Triton Notes: Through its 11th appearance at the CCAA Championship, UCSD is 24-14 at the event, including 10-4 in Stockton, 7-4 at Klein Field, and 7-3 under Eric Newman ... After Gradeigh Sanchez started 28 straight contests in the leadoff position, Erik Lewis took over for the first time in 2015, having led the team with 17 starts there a year ago ... Justin Flatt made just his second first-base start and Sanchez hit third for the first time as a college player, while Jack Larsen was back in the cleanup spot after taking up the five hole in the previous two contests in Stockton ... Larsen's 10th inning steal made him a perfect 12-for-12 on the year and 14-for-14 for his career ... Prior to today's first inning, Trevor Scott had thrown 13.0 consecutive shutout innings against CSUDH in a pair of shutout wins for the Tritons in the 2014 and 2015 regular seasons ... UCSD as a team had posted five shutout triumphs over CSUDH over the last eight meetings ... The Tritons' two runs marked their first of the earned variety of the tournament after their first six were all unearned ... Five strikeouts today by its pitching staff extended UCSD's program-record total to 426 ... With six more walks, UCSD increased its nation-leading season total to 278, matching the Division II-era program standard of 278 from a year ago ... Erik Lewis' ninth-inning walk was his league-best 39th ... Tyler Howsley's ninth-inning sacrifice was his team-leading ninth ... Tim White's 10th-inning steal was the first of his career.
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