Weekends for second year head Coach Troy Buckley are like entering a time machine. Last week’s bus was unloaded by Santa Barbara’s Andrew Checketts with his half season of head coaching experience. This week, the dean of Big West coaches Mike Gillespie brings his battle- scarred but very talented Anteaters to Blair with 25 head coaching years (20 at USC, five at Irvine).
So we chatted with the coach to get his opinion on the value of head coaching experience. “Well it would be nice if you would say that I have 25 times more talent than Troy,” Gillespie cracked, “but Troy is an excellent coach who is getting Long Beach better and better.”
And when did their paths first cross? “I would say it was about 1997 and he was a college friend of John Savage who worked for me at that time at USC. We had one of those baseball coach lunches (yes, he says it might have been in John Robinson’s booth at Julie’s near the SC campus). Then over the years we have really kept up. Our team is very respectful of Long Beach State and how they have turned their season around from all of those one run losses.” Not exactly fightin’ words, but 25 years makes you a real smart interview.
In their mid weekers UCI came in sad and struggling losing two straight to Fullerton and LBSU was perhaps fat and sassy with a six game win streak and a sweep of Santa Barbara. UC Irvine got glad and punched out 10 runs on 13 hits to come away with a 10-5 triumph over SDSU Tuesday at Anteater Ballpark and LBSU. Long Beach State opened up a 3-1 lead on the road at Loyola Marymount but a three-run error by Johnny Bekakis in the seventh inning cost the Dirtbags as LBSU lost again (the sixth time) via a walk off. Both teams had some hitting; Bekakis was 3-for-4 and got on base four times, while Matt Duffy drove in a pair of runs for Long Beach State. The Eaters got two RBIs from each of Tommy Reyes and Jordan Fox plus three from Connor Spencer.
Gillespie traded his glum look of the weekend to a smile. His SID, Fumi Kimura, is a veteran in her own right and praises Mike for his “intelligence, honesty, baseball knowledge, and frankly, he has a really great sense of humor. “ Irvine comes into the weekend much like LBSU, with a very slim margin for error. They are in a three-way tie for fourth in the Big West at 4-5 while the Titans and Niners share the top spot at 7-2. Cal Poly is in third at 5-4. The pitching rotation will start with a nifty Friday night battle between Andrew Thurman of UCI (he held CSUF hitless through eight) and fanned six against Matt Anderson (3-1, 2.80). Despite battling a bad back, Ryan Strufing (4-2, 2.66) will search for his good control because he goes up against Anteater Phillip Ferragamo (3-4, 3.94). On Sunday at 1 p.m. unbeaten Beach ace Shawn Stuart (4-0, 2.06) will face a TBA.
No Butane Dust
Long Beach State is 16-18 overall (7-2 Big West) and had a six game win streak until the Tuesday stumble at LMU…the Dirtbags are hitting .258 and are led by Ino Patron, who is batting .306 with 37 hits. Brennan Metzger is the team’s RBI leader with 19 and tops LBSU in steals with nine…The starting rotation for Long Beach State is a 11-3 on the year…Anderson has 39 strikeouts in 54.2 innings and walked 21 while giving up 17 earned runs.
Stuart, moved from Saturday to Sunday has 52.1 innings pitched and 44 strikeouts. He is holding opposing teams to a .190 average and walked 19 while giving up 12 earned runs…Strufing holds a 2.66 ERA and has fanned 31 in 50.2 innings…UCI leads Long Beach State, 60-47-1 in the all-time series record books. The Anteaters say they will avenge a 2011 series loss at Anteater Ballpark.
Niner SID Roger Kirk may not have the most talented baseball team in the land but he has a heck of a crew of broadcasters shuffling in and out for the Beach. Abby Mastracco LBSU alum did the Tuesday game…her day job is at Fox Sports as a Production Assistant.
Another of his play by play folks is Anthony Masterson, a cousin of Cleveland pitcher Justin Masterson…Abby also noted that Jake Stassi’s brother Max is a catcher in Oakland org and brother Brock plays at Nevada…this weekend you can avoid the homer-ific BYU crew by listening to Sean Pellerin and don’t forget the other KBCH voices, Christian Hartnett and Francisco Rivera.
UCSB loves extra innings…the Gauchos went 14 at LBSU and then on Wednesday went 12 frames for a 5-4 come from behind victory at USC.
The Gauchos can almost relax, this next weekend is with the mostly toothless Pacific Tigers. It was an Olympic worthy battle Misty and Kerri pick up a 5th place finish in Brazil but lost 2-1 to home town stars Juliana and Larissa — the next stop China.
And now our closing quote from Mr. Gillespie and what he thinks of the fans love for focusing on one coach versus another. “winning is really about getting good players but I do enjoy trying to, er, ah, make more educated guesses than the other guy.” Let the guessing begin.