Lbsu Dirtbags
Long Beach State

Dirtbags Come Back For Walk-Off Win Over UCSB

Long Beach State trailed 8-0 to UC Santa Barbara in the sixth inning on Friday night at Bohl Diamond at Blair Field, but the Dirtbags scored four runs in the sixth and eighth innings before a bases loaded wild pitch scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth. LBSU (23-26, 8-8) has won five consecutive games for the first time this season.

Dirtbags Brooks Stotler, Jarren Duran, Leonard Jones, Jacob Hughey and Chris Jimenez all had a pair of hits. Jimenez and Clayton Andrews both had two RBIs. The RBI hits from Andrews, Stotler and Duran in the eighth inning all came with two outs.

Hughey led off the ninth with a single up the middle, and Garrett Nelson came in to run for the designated hitter. After a sacrifice bunt from Jimenez, Steven Rivas was intentionally walked. Shaq Robinson walked to load the bases, and Nelson scored on a wild pitch.

“Throughout the year when we’ve been down we kind of went away a little bit but today was really good to come back and [fight] to then end,” Jimenez said.

UCSB (22-23-1, 7-8) scored all eight of their runs off of LBSU starter Zak Baayoun (5IP, 7ER, 5K, 2BB) but Sebastian Sanchez (3IP, H, 2K, BB) and Chris Rivera (IP, H, 3K) held the Gauchos to three base runners in the final four innings.

“We were fortunate to string some at bats together,” LBSU coach Troy Buckley said. “Neither team played very well but give the our guys credit to have resolve and come back.”

BOX SCORE

Thanks to Luke Ramirez for additional reporting

JJ Fiddler
JJ Fiddler is an award-winning sportswriter and videographer who has been covering Southern California sports for multiple newspapers and websites since 2004. After attending Long Beach State and creating the first full sports page at the Union Weekly Newspaper, he has been exclusively covering Long Beach prep sports since 2007.
http://The562.org