{"id":749,"date":"2011-05-11T08:38:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T08:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/dirtbags-take-crucial-4-2-victory-over-no-13-ucla\/"},"modified":"2011-05-11T08:38:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T08:38:00","slug":"dirtbags-take-crucial-4-2-victory-over-no-13-ucla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/dirtbags-take-crucial-4-2-victory-over-no-13-ucla","title":{"rendered":"Dirtbags Take Crucial 4-2 Victory Over No. 13 UCLA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Freshman Jon Macial struck out three in just over an inning on the mound. The Bruins struggled with Long Beach pitching all night. Photos by Dale Brown<\/em><\/p>\n

The Long Beach State Dirtbags posted two runs in the first inning and didn’t look back, holding off No. 13 UCLA to take a crucial 4-2 victory at Blair Field on Tuesday night as they look to stay above .500 and make a run at the approaching postseason.<\/p>\n

Senior outfielder Matt Hibbert scored on a sacrifice fly from freshman first baseman Ino Patron, and Jeff McNeil then came home on a Matt Duffy single to give the Dirtbags a quick 2-0 lead in the opening stanza. <\/p>\n

Then in the fourth inning, junior outfielder Brennan Metzger walked, stole second – his team-leading tenth stolen bag of the season – and advanced to third base on a wild pitch. A grounder from Johnny Bekakis brought Metzger in, and Mike Marjama later that inning scored Hibbert again for a 4-0 lead that Long Beach (24-22) would not relinquish.<\/p>\n

The lead was bolstered by a stellar performance from junior Shawn Stuart (3-3), who allowed just two hits in five scoreless innings on the mound. He struck out four and walked just two – both in the first inning, when a double play ball rescued Stuart from an early jam. Junior reliever Branden Pinder came on late to earn his first save of the season.<\/p>\n

The Bruins (27-17) could never find a stroke, scoring two in the late innings when Stuart was retired for the night, but notched just five hits all night. Bruins freshman Zack Weiss (5-2) earned just his second loss of the season. <\/p>\n

Both teams missed plenty of scoring opportunities, with Long Beach stranding eight players on base and UCLA failing to score nine.<\/p>\n

The Dirtbags next face a tough three-game road swing at rival Cal State Fullerton, with the first game at 7:00pm this Friday.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Junior Mitchel Beacom finished the game for UCLA, but starter Zack Weiss earned his second loss of the season.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Freshman infielder Johnny Bekakis added his seventh RBI of the season in the fourth inning to give Long Beach the victory.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Bruins struggled at the plate and left nine runners stranded on base.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Long Beach State Dirtbags posted two runs in the first inning and didn’t look back, holding off No. 13 UCLA to take a crucial 4-2 victory at Blair Field on Tuesday night as they look to stay above .500 and make a run at the approaching postseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":16777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}