UCI road warriors ready for next week’s visit to LSU

LINCOLN, Neb. — UC Irvine baseball coach Mike Gillespie is in his 16th NCAA Tournament appearance, but his first at the helm of the Anteaters.

And though he was only a spectator as the Anteaters swept the Round Rock (Texas) Regional and the Wichita State Super Regional last season en route to a third-place finish at the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., he said yet another regional victory on the road will boost his team’s chances in the upcoming LSU Super Regional in Baton Rouge.

“It serves us well,” Gillespie said after the Anteaters (41-16) stymied Oral Roberts, 8-0, in the Lincoln Regional championship game at Hawks Field at Haymarket Park on Sunday.

“There is a nucleus of players who have played in front of big crowds and, in some cases, very difficult places to play,” said Gillespie, who guided USC to five CWS appearances, including the 1998 national championship. “Baton Rouge [where the host Tigers will await having won 23 straight, including their own regional Sunday] is certainly one of those places.

“[The Tigers, one of eight national seeds in the field that began as 64 teams and will Monday be pared to 16] have been extraordinarily hot in the last six weeks or so [they are on a 23-game winning streak]. They play in an echo chamber with a metal corrugated roof hanging behind home plate, so the noise is magnified 10-fold.

“I trust our players will be excited, as they should be, but not intimidated or awestruck.”

 Oral Roberts Coach Rob Walton, whose team lost twice to UCI in the regional, had high praise for Gillespie, his staff of associate head coach Pat Shine, pitching coach Ted Silva, assistant Bob Macaluso and director of baseball operations Jason Dietrich, as well as the Anteaters players.

“That’s probably the most prepared baseball team I’ve played against in my 10 years of coaching,” said Walton, who will coach the U.S. national team this summer. “It’s as well-prepared a baseball team as there is. They take care of the ball and do the little things right. They have good pitching. Offensively, they try to create offense and they do a good job of it. They’re as well-coached a team as any I’ve been around in a long, long time.”

 Further, Walton said UCI is no longer the gutty little newcomer on the national baseball scene with the cute little unusual mascot.

“[The Anteaters] have been good for a while and, if people know college baseball, they know Irvine is for real. It’s in a really good location, a hotbed for baseball talent, and they have a nice facility.

“And,” Walton continued. “They have a very experienced coach in Mike Gillespie. In my mind, he has to be one of the top five or six coaches in the country. He does it right and they’re for real. They’re not a sleeper by any means.”

 Casey Stevenson finished seven for nine in the regional (.778) with three RBIs and four runs scored. The ’Eaters’ sophomore second baseman entered Friday’s game off the bench, but started the final two.

He said a recent adjustment in his stance, suggested by Shine, helped him get on a recent hot streak. He came into regional play with a .264 batting average (29 for 110), but is now hitting .303 as he heads into the super regional.

Stevenson, whose .778 average led all hitters with multiple at-bats in the regional, was denied a place on the all-tournament team by Nebraska senior second baseman Jake Opitz, who hit .417 (five for 12), but launched three home runs and drove in five runs.

 Sunday’s shutout was UCI’s ninth of the season, the second in its last four games. The nine shutouts match last year’s total.

 UCI pitchers combined for 34 strikeouts in the three regional wins. The 13 strikeouts earned against Oral Roberts in UCI’s 9-7 win Friday, were a season-high absorbed by the Golden Eagles. But that record lasted just two days, as Bryce Stowell & Co. produced 14 punchouts against Oral Roberts Sunday.

UCI pitchers amassed a collective 3.00 earned-run average in three games, surrendering just 22 hits and seven walks in 27 innings.

 UCI hitters combined to post a .333 batting average, 28 points higher than their regular-season average.

 UCI averted calamity Saturday night in pregame infield, when senior catcher Aaron Lowenstein, his eyes to the sky tracking a popup hit by assistant coach Bob Macaluso, tripped over a wooden box used to chalk the batters box that was resting against the backstop. Lowenstein face planted into the screen, but only his pride was injured.

 Nebraska managed just two hits in Sunday’s elimination-game loss to Oral Roberts.

Cornhuskers’ sophomore first baseman Tyler Faust broke up Kelly Minisalle’s no-hitter to lead off the seventh inning.

Including the final 6 1/3 of Friday’s loss to UCI, the Cornhuskers went hitless for 12 1/3 innings before Faust’s single.

 In its last four regional defeats, Nebraska has scored four runs, including Sunday’s 8-0 setback to Oral Roberts.

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at [email protected].