Roman Martin’s grand slam powers UCLA baseball past Arizona State in L.A. Regional
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UCLA’s Ian May came out of the bullpen and induced Kien Vu to ground into a double play in the fourth to cut short a potential big inning and the Bruins never looked back during an 11-5 victory over Arizona State at the Los Angeles Regional.
The top-seeded Bruins (43-16) advance to the regional final at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
May entered the game in the fourth inning and protected UCLA’s lead, giving up three runs in five innings.
“His line doesn’t completely tell you the story with his two earned runs at the end of the game, but I don’t think we’d be where we were tonight without Ian,” UCLA coach John Savage said.
UCLA baseball posts season-highs for runs and hits in a dominant, 19-4 win over Fresno State to open its NCAA tournament slate.
May said he was pleased with the result.
“It felt pretty good tonight, just happy to get the team a win,” he said.
AJ Salgado scored the opening run for UCLA, followed by Payton Brennan to make it 2-0. Cleanup hitter Roman Martin then broke the game open with a grand slam in the second, driving in Mulivai Levu, Roch Cholowsky, and Dean West to extend UCLA’s commanding lead to 7-0.
Arizona State scored a run in the bottom of the second and again in the fourth to cut into the deficit, but UCLA’s offense kept the pressure on. The Sun Devils added two more runs in the ninth but could not close the gap.
The Bruins will face the winner of the Arizona State-UC Irvine game at 7 p.m. Sunday for a spot in the super regionals.
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