FULLERTON, Calif.—UC San Diego baseball earned the Big West series sweep over first-place Cal State Fullerton, 4-1, on Sunday afternoon at Goodwin Field. The Tritons (30-18, 18-9 Big West) dealt the Titans (28-19, 17-7 Big West) their first series sweep of the season and improved to 8-4 in the all-time series.
 
Starter Nic Gregson (5-1) pitched a gem to earn his fifth victory of the season, going a career-long 6.2 innings without allowing a run. The redshirt sophomore collected six strikeouts, while allowing three hits and one walk. Izaak Martinez earned his second save of the weekend and sixth of the season, closing out the final 2.1 innings and allowing one run on two hits with one walk and two strikeouts.
 
Patrick Hackworth finished 2-for-3 with a walk and a run scored, while four different Tritons were credited with an RBI. Emiliano Gonzalez knocked the only home run of the contest, while Michael Fuhrman, Doyle Kane and Brandon Larson also finished with one RBI apiece.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Tritons were quick to score for the second game in a row, hanging three runs on the board in the top of the first. Kane and Larson hit back-to-back RBI singles and Fuhrman capped the inning with a sac-fly to give the Tritons a 3-0 lead.
 
Cal State Fullerton got two runners on with one out in the bottom of the first, but back-to-back strikeouts by Gregson kept the Titans scoreless in the first. After issuing a leadoff walk in the third, Gregson and the Tritons retired the next 12 Titans in order through the sixth inning.  
 
UC San Diego threatened again in the fifth with runners on second and third with two outs. However, a hard-hit line-out to the second baseman ended the inning without a run for the Tritons to keep it 3-0. 
 
The Tritons advanced a runner into scoring position again in both the seventh and eighth, but UC San Diego came up empty both times. 
 
In the top of the ninth, the Tritons added an insurance run on a leadoff homer by Gonzalez to extend their lead, 4-0. CSF got the run back in the bottom of the ninth with a home run of its own with two outs, but Martinez forced a fly-out to end the game and secure the sweep.
 
QUOTABLE
"I'm really proud of the way our guys competed this weekend," said head coach Eric Newman. "That's a good team that hadn't lost a conference series all year. All three days we had contributions up and down the lineup and on the pitching staff.
 
"This weekend our starting pitching really showed up for us and that gave us confidence that we would be in every game. I'm really excited about how much resiliency this group showed."
 
TRITON TIDBITS

• Win the victory, the Tritons recorded 30 wins for the first time as a Division I program, and first 30-win season since 2019.
• Nic Gregson ranks sixth in the Big West with five wins on the season.
• Izaak Martinez ranks sixth in the Big West with six saves.
• Hackworth turned in another multi-hit performance, finishing the weekend 6-for-10 with a .615 on base percentage. 
• Fuhrman, Gonzalez, Kane and Larson were credited with RBI.
• The Tritons improved to 8-4 in the all-time series with Cal State Fullerton.
  • It was the first series sweep the Titans suffered this season.
• It was the sixth series sweep of the season and fifth in Big West play for the Tritons.
• The 3-0 weekend moved UC San Diego into second place in the Big West at 18-9 (.667) with two weeks to go. The Tritons trail Cal State Fullerton at 17-7 (.708). 

UP NEXT
The Tritons will begin the final week of the 2023 season on Tuesday at San Diego State, with first pitch scheduled for 6 p.m. The game will be streamed on the Mountain West Network and live statistics will be available via UCSDTritons.com.
 
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of The Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.