Sometimes, baseball can amaze me. A game time of 2:28, where two teams combine for 26 hits and 16 runs just seems out of place. Both pitching staff’s were working fast, if not efficient.
Things got off to a fast start, with Sean Williams, the second batter of the game in the top of the first, taking David Rowse (8-2) yard. The Tigers responded quickly, getting two in the bottom of the first, and I settled in for what felt like a nice, long, high run game. Pacifc, through the first three innings really got to UCSB starter Mario Hollands (5-5) sending seven men to the plate in the first and third innings.
Then Hollands remembered who he is, or Pacific hitters came back to reality. Although his line might look deceiving (7.0 ip, 12 hits, 6 runs, 4 earned, 8 k’s, 136 pitches, chased in the top of the 8th with two on and no outs) after the first three innings he started an absolute tear, retiring 13 of 16 at one point with seven strikeouts, and a couple of scattered hits though that stretch.
Although Hollands had a great outing in his final start of the year, the Gaucho batting order had that much more power. Of their 12 hits, nine went for extra bags (four doubles, one triple, four home runs). Marty Mullins had a strong game for UCSB, with two home runs and and one of the rare singles.
For Pacific, they continued a trend of dropping the opener of a series, and have now done it in six of their last seven series. Head Coach Ed Sprague switched things up for Pacific, looking to get them going strong and have Rowse take the Friday starting spot. His goal was to have Hunter Carnivale pitch twice this weekend in relief. However, being the final series of the year and the final series for Pacific’s seniors, the nerve’s ran high. Rowse leads the Tigers with eight wins this season, and was a strong emotional leader on the hill. But, last night was a game of contrasts. Rowse threw some of his best pitches of the year, beautiful change-ups and a wicked curve, only to leave something hanging in the zone that UCSB hitters knew what to do with: blast it over the fence. That combined with Hollands getting into a grove, would prove to be the undoing in the opener.
It wasn’t all bad for the Tigers. Senior’s Ben Gorang, Mike Walker, and Joe Olivera were all strong at the plate. Gorang had a two-run double, Walker was 2-5 with a run and an rbi, and Olivera had a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth in a desperate attempt to get the Tigers back into the game. Pacific’s first three hitters in the line-up, Nick Longmire, Brett Christopher, and Brian Martin, went a combined 3-12 in the game. Dont expect that trend to continue. Pacific is one of the best hitting teams in the Big West, and they always respond after a rough outing.
The goal for the Tigers is “two out of three.” They always want to take two out of three from every series, and they still have a chance to do that. Pacific hosts UCSB tonight at 6pm in the second game of the final series of the year for both teams.
From the broadcast side of things, this might have been one of the wildest games I have ever done. Before the game started, I was checking the box, and for some reason our phone lines were dead. Pacific’s been on the road the last three weeks, so this was my first home game in a month. In the meantime, Pacific has hosted some other college and high school baseball events. When I got into the booth, whoever was in my broadcast room had taken everything: phone lines and internet cables. After finding replacements is when we discovered the problem with the phone lines. We checked box after box, still nothing.
Eventually, we ran a phone line and I called the game in on…a telephone. No fancy headsets here folks. After doing the first two innings on the phone, we ran it online and we were finally up and running.
To finish things up, my ordeal ran so long I got two great pre-game interviews that I was unable to use, so I’ll post them here. The first one is Pacific’s Freshman DH John Haberman, talking about his first year and his offseason workout program.
John Haberman Interview
The second interview was with UCSB head coach Bob Brontsema, who is finishing up his 29th year with the program. He’s been involved in every which way possible with UCSB baseball, and couldn’t have been a nicer guy. And he was very talkative considering I started him off with a very tough question.
Bob Brontsema Interview
