OMAHA, Neb. — Roman Martin and AJ Salgado drove in two runs apiece to lead the Big Ten’s UCLA Bruins past Murray State, 6-4, as the Racers of the Missouri Valley Conference made their College World Series debut Saturday afternoon at Charles Schwab Field Omaha.
The Bruins (48-16), who are the No. 15 national seed and advanced to the eight-team CWS for the first time since they won the championship in 2013, built a 6-0 lead before the Racers began chipping away at it in the middle innings. UCLA closer Easton Hawk pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to secure the Bruins’ fourth straight win in a CWS first-round game.
“It’s one game in a four-team bracket,” UCLA coach John Savage said of the double-elimination portion in Omaha to set up next weekend’s best-of-three title series. “Yeah, you want to win the first game, no question about it. But we’ve got a long, long ways to go.”
UCLA will play Monday night against No. 6 national seed LSU (49-15). The Tigers played Saturday night in the final game of the first round and beat No. 3 Arkansas in an all-Southeastern Conference showdown between the highest remaining seeds in this year’s NCAA Division I baseball tournament.
The Racers (44-16), who are only the fourth No. 4 regional seed since 1999 to advance to the CWS, need a win Monday to avoid this appearance being an 0-2 showing that quickly sends them home to Kentucky.
Ian May (8-3), the second of five relievers who followed starter Michael Barnett, pitched an inning to earn the win for UCLA.
Murray State’s Nic Schutte (8-5) took the loss on the mound.
The Bruins were in full control early and improved to 27-1 this season when scoring first. They loaded the bases with no outs in the first inning against Schutte, who gave up a hit and issued three walks before he settled down and got back-to-back strikeouts and a groundout to keep it 1-0.
Dean West singled in another run in the second, and the Bruins added four more in the fourth on a safety squeeze bunt, base hit and Salgado’s two-run double.
“Murray State is very competitive,” Savage said. “We knew when we put up a 4 in the fourth, they probably wouldn’t blink an eye, and they didn’t. They kept battling back. It wasn’t an easy victory. We pitched out of some problems today.”
Murray State ended the UCLA pitching staff’s streak of 20 2/3 scoreless innings when a sliding Jonathan Hogart beat Salgado’s throw to the plate on Carson Garner’s drive into right field in the fifth. Before that, the Bruins hadn’t allowed a run since the second inning of their super regional opener against UTSA last weekend.
The Racers added a run in the sixth and two more in the eighth after putting runners on second and third with no outs. Consecutive RBI groundouts pulled them within 6-4.
“It’s Omaha. You expect trouble,” Savage said. “If you’re not expecting trouble, you’ll be out of here pretty quick. So you better be able to pitch with traffic and pitch out of problems. That’s the nature of championship baseball.”
Hawk went to the mound in the ninth with a two-run lead and facing the heart of the Racers’ order. He struck out Dustin Mercer, got Garner to ground out and fanned Dominic Decker to earn his eighth save of the year.
“So happy these guys get to experience this and play on this stage and show the whole country that they belong,” Racers coach Dan Skirka said. “Obviously, we didn’t come out victorious, but I couldn’t be more proud of the fight they showed. They jumped on us early, and we weren’t able to get that knock.
“But I never had a doubt that these guys were going to keep fighting, scrapping, clawing and giving us a chance in the end. That’s exactly what they did.”