Baseball ends up in Lions' jaws
LMU scores five in eighth inning to stun No. 5 Bruins
By Brian Purcell
Daily Bruin Contributor
Nonconference games don't matter, do they? That's what the UCLA baseball team is hoping after their surprising 10-7 loss to Loyola Marymount on Wednesday afternoon.
The Bruins' season reached a high point last weekend when they took two out of three games from the Stanford Cardinal in their first Six-Pac series of the year. They had risen to No. 5 in the latest Baseball America poll, and hoped to use the Loyola game as a warmup for this weekend's three-game home series against Cal. It seemed unthinkable that the fifth best team in the nation could lose to a team with a 2-12 record and a 10.56 team ERA.
Well, make that a 3-12 record, because the Lions somehow managed to outlast the Bruins (11-6). They dealt the final blow of a seesaw game by scoring five runs in the eighth inning, thereby erasing the 6-5 advantage that UCLA had gained in the top of the inning.
UCLA took an early 3-0 lead in the game when Jon Heinrichs hit a second inning two-run single that scored Pete Zamora and Jack Santora.
Loyola chipped away with single runs in the second and fourth innings, then took their first lead in the fifth when they scored three runs to go up 5-3.
UCLA senior pitcher Rick Heinemann came in for starter Ryan O'Toole with two outs in the fifth, and he pitched brilliantly for two and one-third innings, retiring the side in order in both the sixth and seventh.
The roof caved in during the eighth inning, however, when four Loyola hits and one UCLA error led to the five-run barrage.
Early missed opportunities were the real key to the loss for the Bruins, as they managed to pound out fifteen hits during the game, but couldn't get hits when they needed them. Heinrichs, Santora, Eric Byrnes and Zak Ammirato all had three hits for UCLA, and Ammirato also had three RBIs.
UCLA played without starting shortstop Troy Glaus, who was out with a back injury, and also lost Pete Zamora to a back injury in the second inning. Both appear to be questionable for the Cal series.
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
Zak Ammirato had three hits and three RBIs for UCLA Wednesday afternoon.
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