PCAA Baseball : Brink Gains Some Revenge in UCI’s 7-3 Win

Craig Brink, UC Irvine pitcher, had failed to make it past the third inning in his two previous starts against Fresno State, and his third effort against the Bulldogs, in Friday night’s Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. opener, wasn’t looking much better to begin with.

After Tom Goodwin opened the game with a single and Shawn Gilbert lined an RBI double to left-center field, it appeared that the junior right-hander might not make it past the first inning.

But Brink shook off his rocky start, escaped the first with no further damage, and went on to pitch a complete game to help the Anteaters defeat the Bulldogs, 7-3, at UC Irvine.

Brink allowed 10 hits, but, outside of the sixth inning when Fresno State took advantage of three hits and two Anteater errors to score two runs, no Bulldog runner advanced past second base.

Brink received good offensive support--the Anteaters had 11 hits, with every starter except shortstop Chris Gallego getting at least one hit--and kept the Bulldogs off balance with a series of off-speed and breaking pitches.

“I owed them this one,” said Brink (4-3), who entered the game with a 6.75 earned run average. “They’ve destroyed me twice in the past two years.”

The Anteaters (13-13-1) didn’t exactly destroy the ball Friday night, but they received some key hits and took advantage of most of their scoring opportunities.

Leadoff hitter Marcus Robinson had two hits and scored three runs. Mike Fay added a hit and two RBIs, and Mike Sugar and Doug Kline each had two hits.

Irvine tied the game in the bottom of the first when Robinson singled, stole second, advanced to third on a ground out and scored on Sugar’s bloop single.

The Anteaters took a 3-1 lead in the second as Kline walked and scored on Rory Valasek’s double, and Valasek later scored on Fresno pitcher John Salles’ balk. Irvine added single runs in the third (Jeff Oberdank triple and Fay’s ground out) and fifth (Robinson’s double, an error and Oberdank’s sacrifice fly).

After scoring twice in the sixth, the Bulldogs nearly tied the game in the seventh when Shawn Gilbert singled and Scott Blechman smashed a fly ball to deep right field.

But Anteater right fielder Stacy Parker, who had just replaced the injured Frank Spates, raced back and made the catch in front of the fence to end the inning.

Irvine added two insurance runs in the seventh, as Robinson scored on Fay’s single, and Oberdank scored on a wild pitch.

Santa Barbara 6, Fullerton 5--The Titans lost their PCAA opener by blowing a five-run lead at Santa Barbara. Home runs by Greg Mannion and Mike Ross, and Mark Baca’s two-run double in the fifth gave Fullerton (0-1, 19-11) a 5-0 lead in the sixth inning.

But Santa Barbara came back with a run in the sixth, and in the eighth, the Gauchos (1-0, 15-10-2) scored five runs on just two singles to go ahead.

Fullerton starter Longo Garcia (6-2) loaded the bases and gave up a single that scored one run and had another run score on a throwing error by Ross.

Santa Barbara’s Russ Ballati tied the score at 5-5 with a single off reliever Gary Buckels. Buckels then committed a balk allowing the go-ahead run to score.

Santa Barbara reliever Brian Nelson pitched four innings, allowing one hit and no runs.