UC Irvine’s Defense Crumbles in Eighth as Long Beach Wins

For seven innings Sunday, UC Irvine pitcher Ken Whitworth labored to keep his team close. Whitworth, a junior left-hander, did his best, and Irvine and Cal State Long Beach were tied going into the eighth.

Whitworth ran out of luck about the same time Irvine ran out of defense as Cal State Long Beach scored four runs in the eighth and went on to a 6-2 victory in front of about 200 in a Big West Conference game at Blair Field in Long Beach.

Dan Barbara opened the eighth with a double for Long Beach (35-8 overall, 8-1 in conference play). He moved to third and Deryk Hudson reached first when Irvine second baseman Jon Damush dropped Hudson’s ground ball.

With the infield in, Todd Lloyd hit a grounder to Damush, who picked it up, dropped it and threw too late to the plate to get pinch-runner Glenn Twardy, who scored to give Long Beach a 3-2 lead. The play was ruled a fielder’s choice.

Dan Berthel then sacrificed and Perry Sanchez was intentionally walked to load the bases.

Steve May replaced Whitworth and gave up a two-run double to No. 9 hitter Jay Carballo. Darrell Sherman had an RBI single for Long Beach’s final run.

Whitworth allowed two earned runs, eight hits and four walks in 7 1/3 innings but fell to 4-5Irvine is 14-24-1, 1-8.

“Ken just threw a great game,” Irvine Coach Mike Gerakos said. “We just didn’t do a good job of adjusting to their pitcher.”

Tom Urbani (6-4) pitched a six-hitter for Long Beach, which is ranked 13th in the Baseball America poll. Irvine went ahead, 2-0, in the third on an RBI double by Stacy Parker and an RBI single by Ed Luna.

Long Beach tied it in the fifth on back-to-back RBI singles by Todd Guggiana and Barbara.

Irvine’s best chance to score after the third came in the eighth, when Parker led off with a single. After failing to sacrifice, Luna grounded into a force play. Luna then stole second but had to go back to first when Al Rodriguez was ruled out for interfering with catcher Guggiana’s throw. Courtney Davis then grounded into a force play to end the inning.

In another conference game:

Nevada Las Vegas 11, Fullerton 7--Kevin Lofthus extended his hitting streak to 34 games with a run-scoring single to help Las Vegas (29-11, 5-4) score six runs in the first inning. Shawn Murphy’s three-run homer capped the inning against loser Paul Johnson (3-5), who pitched 5 1/3 innings and allowed 10 earned runs. Tory Miran (3-3) picked up the victory for Las Vegas. He was knocked out in the seventh inning when the Titans (25-16, 5-4) scored five runs on five singles, two walks and one error.

Fullerton scored its final run in the ninth inning on a homer by Rich Gonzales.