Faulkner: A troubled weekend for ‘Eaters
Some retroactive headlines for the weekend that was:
1) Russell Turner blows a gasket.
2) Sam Moore blows the save ... again.
3) Wind at Fresno State’s Pete Beiden Field apparently blows out.
Turner’s UC Irvine men’s basketball team’s bid to defend its Big West Conference regular-season title sustained a huge hit in Saturday’s 70-63 loss at UC Riverside.
The Anteaters also continue to absorb key injuries as their third starter, senior co-captain John Ryan, exited early in the first half with a foot injury.
Mamadou Ndiaye, a 7-foot-6 sophomore center, and Alex Young, a junior guard, have already combined to miss 19 games this season with foot problems of their own, and Ndiaye’s time on the sidelines came in two separate stints, both dictated by separate foot injuries.
Ndiaye was not in the protective boot Saturday that he had worn for weeks, and his return could be imminent.
Young, who was sidelined Feb. 5 in a loss to UC Davis, was still using crutches Saturday.
Turner, whose intensity and competitiveness are big reasons he has elevated the Anteaters’ program in his five seasons, didn’t exactly take Saturday’s loss sitting down. Obviously frustrated by his team’s play, he snapped at players and cavorted wildly in front of his bench, pleading and protesting with officials.
One official warned Turner early that he wasn’t going to put up with his histrionics. And another later admonished Turner to “Knock it off.”
His animated antics were the most demonstrative and damning I’ve ever seen during his tenure and, at one point, an assistant advised him to halt one emotional outburst by suggesting that the last thing the Anteaters needed was a technical foul on their coach.
UCI (14-10, 7-3 in conference), enters its final six conference regular-season games two games behind conference leading UC Davis (19-4, 9-1) and one-half game ahead of third-place Long Beach State (13-14, 7-4).
The ‘Eaters play host to Hawaii on Thursday at 7:30 p.m., then entertain Cal State Northridge on Saturday at 7 in the Bren Events Center.
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•Sam Moore, a UCI senior pitcher who led the nation with 23 saves and earned All-American honors last season, was charged with a blown save in his first opportunity this season on Friday at Fresno State.
It was an ominous result for the right-hander, who blew his final four save opportunities in 2014 and appeared in only two of eight postseason games on the ‘Eaters’ run to the College World Series. Neither of those appearances were save situations.
Since converting 23 of his first 24 save chances last season, Moore has now made six appearances without recording another save. During that stretch, in which he finished only one inning that he started, he has allowed 13 hits and four runs, all earned, in 4 1/3 innings. In that span, he has walked three and struck out only one.
UCI Coach Mike Gillespie said last week with some uneasiness, that Moore would begin the season as the closer. He may have already lost that role.
“You’d like to think you know what you’re getting [from Moore in 2015], but you don’t,” Gillespie said days before the season-opening three-game sweep at Fresno State. “We know how things spiraled for him at the end of the year and it has been a real, real struggle for him in the fall until about the last 10 days [of preseason workouts]. Only in those 10 days has he kind of teased us with a little hope of what he could be, or a return to what he was.”
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•Moore wasn’t the only bullpen breakdown for UCI against the Bulldogs, who handed the Eaters’ their first season-opening sweep since 2002, its first season after it resurrected the program.
UCI led, 5-0, through six innings in Saturday’s 7-5 setback. It was ahead, 5-0, through six and 5-2 after seven innings in Sunday’s 7-5 loss.
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•The good news for UCI baseball included a long-ball barrage — six homers in the series — that longtime Anteaters fans would consider a significant output for a month.
Andrew Martinez, a 6-foot-4, 240-pound sophomore designated hitter, belted three homers, including two on Saturday, while freshman Keston Hiura homered Friday in his collegiate debut, then tacked on with another on Sunday.
Sophomore John Brontsema debuted his Zot trot with his first collegiate dinger on Sunday.
Hiura, who led California high school players with 14 taters last season, was praised by Gillespie before the weekend as potentially the best hitter he had coached in his eight-season tenure at the school.
UCI had 12 homers in 66 games last season and did not hit its sixth of the season until March 25.
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•Ending on a positive note, the UCI men’s volleyball team, then ranked No. 5, bested then-No. 4-ranked Pepperdine in five games on Saturday at the Bren Events Center. Pepperdine, with all but one returning starter, was picked atop the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation preseason poll.
Also on Saturday afternoon at the Bren, the UCI women’s basketball team upset UC Riverside, 76-72, behind 21 points and 13 rebounds from junior Mokun Fajemisin. It was the seventh double-double of the season for Fajemisin, who was named Big West Conference Player of the Week.