LOS ANGELES — James Castagnola hit a three-run homer with two outs in the second inning and the UC Irvine baseball team never looked back in an 8-3 victory over Fresno State on Saturday afternoon in an elimination game of the NCAA tournament’s Los Angeles Regional.
UCI (42-16), the second seed in the four-team regional, gets a rematch with third-seeded Arizona State (36-23) in another elimination game on Sunday at 3 p.m. at Jackie Robinson Stadium. The winner of that game will then face unbeaten regional host UCLA (44-16) later that night, with the UCI-ASU winner needing to beat UCLA twice on Sunday and Monday to win the regional.
ASU outlasted UCI, 4-2, in their regional opener on Friday night.
Castagnola’s homer came after Fresno State starting pitcher Aidan Cremarosa (6-6) hit Jacob McCombs leading off before walking Blake Penso with one out. McCombs hit a two-out solo shot in the third and Alonso Reyes walked and scored on a double play in the fourth for a 5-0 advantage.
Lee Trevino singled in an unearned run that Anteaters reliever David Utagawa (2-0) inherited from starter Riley Kelly in the fourth and Eddie Saldivar hit a two-out solo homer off Utagawa in the fifth to get the the fourth-seeded Bulldogs (31-29) within 5-2.
McCombs, who went 3 for 4, singled in a run in the seventh and Colin Yeaman and Anthony Martinez had RBIs in the ninth for UCI.
Justin Stransky had an RBI single in the eighth off of Anteaters reliever Max Martin, who replaced Utagawa after he allowed a leadoff single to Saldivar.
Kelly surrendered two runs (one earned) on four hits in 4⅔ innings. Martin allowed a hit in two scoreless innings to close it out.
Cremarosa yielded five runs in six innings. Drew Townson followed and gave up three runs while retiring four batters.
