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Baseball Long Beach State

Long Beach State Dirtbags Edged By No. 2 UCLA

REPORT FROM LBSU SPORTS INFORMATION DEPARTMENT

The Dirtbags (2-13) looked to knock off the No. 2 UCLA Bruins (12-3) on Tuesday night on Bohl Diamond at Blair Field, but the offense couldn’t do enough to support the pitching staff in a 2-0 loss. A total of 12 pitchers were used, with seven for UCLA and five for Long Beach State, and despite LBSU outhitting the Bruins, 7-4, the Dirtbags were unable to scratch a run against the UCLA staff. 

Junior Riki DeSa continued his hot hitting with a pair of hits on Tuesday, including a ringing double off the left centerfield wall in the fourth inning. Victor Carlino and Santino Rivera had back-to-back singles in the fifth to generate the best chance for the Dirtbags to score, but the bases were left loaded in the inning. Junior Jacob Hughey reached twice with a single and a walk and Jake Vander Wal and Chase Luttrell added base hits as well.

On the mound, LBSU started the game with a pair of debutants as junior Sagun Gainey worked the first two frames and junior Raul Rizo followed for the next two frames. Gainey surrendered a leadoff home run but settled in to retire the next six batters, and Rizo gave up a pair of walks in two scoreless innings of work. Tyler Gums struck out four in his three innings of work but did walk three and allow a run, Jonathan Carlos pitched a scoreless eighth inning and Dylan Spacke worked through traffic for a scoreless ninth. 

Long Beach State’s last eight games have been against ranked teams, with LBSU going 2-6 in that span. This weekend, the Dirtbags welcome Minnesota to Long Beach for a three-game series beginning Friday at 6 p.m. Fans are encouraged to stick around postgame for Friday Night Fireworks.

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