The Long Beach State baseball survived a late rally by UC Davis on Sunday to complete the series sweep at Blair Field.
The Dirtbags (28-23, 11-10 Big West) exploded for 12 hits in Sunday’s 9-8 victory over the Aggies (28-25, 7-14 Big West). LBSU put up seven runs in the first inning, but the Aggies slowly chipped away at the lead. Head coach Troy Buckley said it was not a pretty game.
“That was an old school, 10-years-ago, old bat type of game,” Buckley said. “I’m glad we were on the winning end.”
The Dirtbags entered the ninth inning with a 9-4 lead before the Aggies rallied. UC Davis put up four runs to cut the lead to one run. The comeback fell short after junior righty Ty Provencher got UC Davis’ Kevin Barker to groundout.
Left-fielder Alex Bishop and junior catcher Eric Hutting were both crucial for LBSU. Hutting went 1-3 with 3 RBI and Bishop put together an impressive game in his last appearance at Blair Field, going 2-4 with 2 RBI and one run scored.
“It was a little bit of a weird feeling with my last game here at Blair,” Bishop said. “I was trying to focus on finishing the season strong.”
On Saturday the Dirtbags won 4-2 behind freshman right-hander Chris Mathewson’s second complete game of the season. Mathewson (6-5) struck out eight batters while giving up six hits and three walks.
The Dirtbags jumped to an early 3-0 lead in the first inning when senior left-fielder Nolan Meadows hit a two-run triple to the right-field corner. The Aggies answered back in the top of the second inning with two doubles and two runs to cut the lead down 3-2. However, the rally fell short and the Dirtbags put up the final run of the game in the sixth inning to clinch the win.
Senior right-hander Kyle Friedrichs made his last career start at Blair Field on Friday. He threw for seven innings and had six strikeouts while only allowing one earned run. The Aggies built an early 3-1 lead by the fourth inning, but Friedrichs was able to settle down after that and shutout the Aggies between the fifth and seventh innings.
“I kind of went out of my book in the first [few] innings but after that I wasn’t having it,” Friedrichs said. “I feel like I left everything out there and I got no regrets.”
The Dirtbags rallied in the eighth inning to win the game 4-3. Freshman designated hitter Brock Lundquist capped the comeback by singling past the shortstop to bring in the game-winning run. Lundquist, who went 2-4 with 2 RBI and double, also had the game winning hit two weeks ago against UCLA.
“I was just trying to hit the ball into the gap like last time,” Lundquist said. “The guy was throwing pretty hard so I wasn’t trying to do anything overpowering.”
Long Beach State will travel to Fullerton to play the rival Titans in a three-game series starting Thursday at 8 p.m.