OMAHA, Neb. — The UCLA baseball team did its heavy lifting early and held its ground late, a winning combo Saturday afternoon at the College World Series.
A four-run fourth inning led the 15th-seeded Bruins to a 6-4 victory over unseeded Murray State in the opener for both at Charles Schwab Field Omaha.
It puts UCLA (48-16), now 6-0 in the postseason, into a winner’s bracket game against No. 6 seed LSU (49-15) on Monday at 4 p.m. PT. LSU defeated third-seeded SEC rival Arkansas, 4-1, in Saturday’s evening game.
“Yeah, you want to win the first game, no question about it,” UCLA coach John Savage said. “But we’ve got a long, long ways to go.”
His club got the always-important opening win thanks to a fast start from the offense – the Bruins tallied runs in three of the first four frames on the way to a 6-0 lead – and some timely outs from the bullpen behind starter Michael Barnett.
The junior sputtered through the first, walking two before getting a good bounce and a fortunate call to navigate a scoreless opening frame.
UCLA grabbed a lead in the bottom of the inning, but plated just one – a Roman Martin walk with the bases loaded – and left the bases loaded after each of the first four batters reached base against Murray State starter Nic Schutte.
A nation-leading 64th double play of the season got the Bruins out of the second inning, and the offense generated another run in their half on Dean West’s single to right that scored Cashel Dugger.
Barnett again worked into and out of trouble in the third, giving up back-to-back singles to create traffic before getting a pair of flyouts to left.
“He threw up three zeroes. I don’t know if they’ve been the prettiest zeroes, but they’re zeroes,” Savage told ESPN during an interview in the third inning. “At this level, zeroes are zeroes.”
Barnett put up the game’s first 1-2-3 inning in the fourth, needing just 11 pitches to get his team back in the dugout quickly.
And the offense again responded.
Back-to-back singles by Phoenix Call and West set up the Bruins in the fourth before sophomore shortstop Roch Cholowsky laid down a safety squeeze for his team-leading 80th RBI of the year.
Savage said it was a play Cholowsky, who earlier this week was named the Perfect Game Player of the Year, called on his own.
“But you know what, it’s a baseball play,” Savage said. “It led to four runs, kind of the difference in the game.”
After Mulivai Levu was hit by a pitch, Martin singled to center to drive in his second run of the game and keep the rally going. AJ Salgado brought home two more before the inning was over with a double to right, pushing the lead to 6-0.
Staked to a big lead, Barnett got a pair of quick outs in the fifth. But a two-out single and four-pitch walk by the next two Murray State batters ended his outing due to what Savage said were leg cramps.
“Very hot out there today,” Savage said. “I think our guys dealt with that a little bit.”
A Bruins bullpen that hadn’t allowed a hit in 29 at-bats entering the day saw that streak snapped on right-hander Wylan Moss’ second pitch.
Carson Garner singled to right, a run charged to Barnett, to get the Racers (44-16) on the board. They nearly added more, but West made a diving catch in left to prevent any additional damage.
Murray State chipped into the lead again in the sixth, with a Luke Mistone single chasing Moss. Will Vierling greeted reliever Ian May with a single of his own, and Tauken flew out to bring in Mistone and make it a 6-2 game.
The Racers had a chance to get closer in the seventh, with Jonathan Hogart and Dustin Mercer starting the inning with singles against Jack O’Connor – the third of five UCLA relievers to throw Saturday.
But long flyouts by each of the next two batters – including one to the warning track – helped put out the fire before August Souza came on for O’Connor to get the final out of the frame on a lineout to center.
It wasn’t, however, the end of the Murray State threat.
After again putting the first two on, this time against Souza to start the eighth, both would score on a pair of groundouts to pull within two.
But Bruin freshman closer Easton Hawk shut things down in the ninth, punctuating his eighth save of the season with a pair of strikeouts in a perfect frame.
“Hard-fought win,” Savage said. “Murray State is very competitive. We knew when we put up a four in the fourth, they probably wouldn’t blink an eye, and they didn’t. They kept battling back.
“It wasn’t an easy victory.”
UCLA improved to 27-1 this season when scoring first, the best mark in Division I.
“That’s as good a defensive team and display that I’ve seen,” Murray State coach Dan Skirka said. “The play in the first, up the middle, the double play that they turned in the second, the sliding catch in left, the catch at the wall in right – they just made that look easy on the defensive side.”
Murray State, making its first appearance at the CWS, will play in an elimination game against Arkansas (48-14) on Monday at 11 a.m. PT.
Asked about their initial thoughts of Omaha, both Skirka and Hogart complimented the atmosphere. Saturday’s game drew 24,346.
“Obviously, it’s baseball heaven here,” Mercer said. “I was talking about it yesterday – I walked around (and) I never felt famous before until I got here.”
