College baseball: Anteaters turned away, 13-5

Steve Virgen

LOS ANGELES - After 6 1/2 innings, UC Irvine baseball coach John

Savage’s homecoming to USC appeared to have a storybook feel to it,

though the host Trojans pulled out a 13-5 nonconference win Tuesday

night.

Savage, the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at USC from

1996-2000, started his hottest pitcher, Glenn Swanson, who was not

recruited by an other school except for UCI.

Swanson, who earned Big West Conference Pitcher of the Week laurels

Monday, completed six innings, allowing just three hits (two solo home

runs and an RBI double), while striking out three. His final pitch, in

the bottom of the sixth, was a wicked slider for a swing, miss and

strikeout to USC senior Bill Peavey, a 6-foot-4, 240-pound first baseman

who had slammed a solo home run in the second and an RBI double in the

fourth.

The Anteaters (19-15) then scored two runs in the top of the seventh,

as Savage’s strategic moves paid off. After one out, he put in pinch

hitter Chris Klemm, who crushed a double to the right field corner. Then,

UCI freshman first baseman Matt Anderson, who entered Tuesday with a

team-leading .383, sent a line-drive home run over the right field fence

for a 5-3 lead. It was Anderson’s second home run of the season.

“You couldn’t draw it up any better,” Savage said of UCI grabbing the

lead.

But, then came the nightmarish bottom of the seventh, horror for

Savage, Swanson and the Anteaters.

The Trojans (16-13) scored 10 runs in the seventh, as they batted

around, collected six hits, went through three UCI pitchers and gave USC

its own fairy-tale-like win. The victory marked USC’s 600th victory at

Dedeaux Field, which opened in 1974.

However, Savage, true to the character that helped the Trojans to a

national championship in 1998, welcomed many more challenges of his

homecomings, UCI at USC.

“We love playing here, we want to play here every year and we’ll come

back every year,” said Savage, who noted Irvine’s seventh-inning pitching

was uncharacteristic. “That’s probably the only big inning we’ve given up

all year. Those three guys (Michael Koehler, Jimmy Alstot and Phil

Tripoli) have pitched well the whole year out of the bullpen. Our bullpen

has been one of our strengths. Unfortunately, we were winning, we were in

the game and we let the end get away from us. We run freshman out there

time after time after time, unfortunately things like that happen.”

USC responded to each lead UCI built. The Anteaters went up, 1-0, in

the second, when freshman left-fielder Brett Smith, who reached on a base

hit, scored on a wild pitch.

After USC tied it, 1-1, in the bottom of the second, Irvine grabbed a

3-1 lead after two runs in the third. UCI junior shortstop B.J. Eucce led

off the inning with a double and scored on freshman Jordan Szabo’s

double. Szabo scored on junior catcher Chris Miller’s RBI single.

Jon Horwitz, UCI’s junior center fielder, chipped a base hit to left

center in the fourth to extend his hitting streak to 12 games. USC

avenged a 5-3 loss at UCI March 5.

The Anteaters resumes Big West Conference action Friday at 7 p.m.,

which begins a three-game series with visiting UC Santa Barbara.