The Cal Poly baseball team took on No. 14 UCLA for a sunny non-conference game Sunday afternoon at Baggett Stadium, earning a 6-2 victory and its only victory over UCLA in the three-game series. After defeating No. 19 Michigan on Saturday and splitting four games against nationally-ranked teams this weekend, the Mustangs improved to 6-2 on the season.
“If you look at the results of our work over the weekend, going 2-2 against two nationally ranked teams, it’s a plus for us,” head coach Larry Lee said. “We’re not a complete team at this time. We need to get better in many areas of the game.
Sophomore right-hander Erich Uelmen struck out six and walked one in a complete-game victory for the Mustangs, lowering his ERA to 1.80.
“Erich was great today,” Lee said. “I felt going into the season that we could be better each Sunday he is on the mound and, up to this point, he has not disappointed.”
Cal Poly put together a 10-hit offensive attack and scored four of six runs on two outs. The Mustangs began their offensive attack in the second, scoring three runs on hits by junior shortstop Alec Smith, freshman center fielder Alex McKenna and sophomore left fielder Josh George, who had three hits on the day.
Senior right fielder John Schuknecht scored on a failed pickoff attempt in the seventh to extend the Mustangs’ lead, while freshman catcher Nick Meyer singled up the middle in the seventh to earn the final run for the Mustangs. Uelmen retired the last nine batters to clinch the 6-2 victory.
UCLA’s only runs came in the fourth inning rally, when sophomore first baseman Sean Bouchard smashed an RBI triple and senior center fielder Christoph Bono knocked him in with who singled twice with one RBI, and Sean Bouchard who added a run-scoring triple. Freshman right-hander Kyle Molnar was given the loss after allowing up four runs and seven hits in four innings. Only one of the runs that Mustangs scored in the second inning were earned.
Overall, Cal Poly hit .240 as a team for the weekend. Meyers went 3-for-9 (.333) while Schuknecht went 5-for-16 (.316).
“As long as we can learn and win some games along the line, hopefully we can do some good things,” Lee said.
Cal Poly wraps up a 12-game home stand with four more games next this week, hosting Pepperdine (3-4) on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. and San Francisco (1-8) for a three-game weekend series at Baggett Stadium.