Cal Poly Salvages One Win in Series Against No. 14 UCLA With 6-2 Victory

Sunday, February 28

1 pm

6-2

UCLA

3-4

UCLA

Cal Poly

Cal Poly Salvages One Win in Series Against No. 14 UCLA With 6-2 Victory

2/28/2016 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Sophomore right-hander Erich Uelmen scattered six hits and struck out six in a complete-game performance as Cal Poly defeated No. 14 UCLA 6-2 in the finale of a three-game non-conference baseball series Sunday before 2,007 in Baggett Stadium.

Uelmen (2-0) threw 106 pitches and walked one as he kept UCLA off the board except for two fourth-inning runs, lowering his ERA to 1.80.

With the win, Coach Larry Lee's Mustangs salvaged one win in the series with the Bruins, improved to 6-2 for the season and split four games against a pair of nationally ranked teams this weekend, defeating No. 19 Michigan 5-1 on Saturday.

UCLA fell to 3-4 on the year.

"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," said Lee. "We're not a complete team at this time. We need to get better in many areas of the game.

"As long as we can learn and win some games along the line, hopefully we can do some good things," Lee added.

As late as the end of January when practice opened for the 2016 season, Lee was not mentioning Uelmen (pictured above) as a starter, instead listing the Faith Lutheran (Las Vegas) High School graduate among middle relievers in the bullpen.

"He just upped his level of pitching," said Lee. "I didn't have any thought of using Erich as a starter until mid to late January.

"Erich was great today," Lee added. "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.'

In his first start a week earlier against Pacific, Uelmen gave up just one earned run and three hits over six innings with six strikeouts and got plenty of offensive support in a 19-2 Mustang victory.

Against UCLA, Cal Poly scored four of its six runs with two outs on the board and put together a 10-hit offensive attack.

The Mustangs led all the way, scoring three times in the second inning and never looking back. Alec Smith's groundout tallied the first run and RBI singles by Alex McKenna and Josh George made it 3-0.

Cal Poly added single runs in the third, fifth and seventh frames to keep UCLA at a distance.

Cooper Moore singled to knock in the run in the third, Schuknecht stole home on a pickoff throw to first base in the fifth and Nick Meyer singled up the middle in the seventh to cash in the final Cal Poly run.

Uelmen retired the last nine UCLA batters of the game and retired the side in order four times.

Cal Poly's 10 hits included three singles and one RBI by George (pictured at right) and two hits each by McKenna and Schuknecht. Lone Mustang extra-base hit of the game was a double by Schuknecht leading off the third inning.

Right fielder Christoph Bono singled twice with one RBI for UCLA and first baseman Sean Bouchard added a run-scoring triple in UCLA's two-run fourth-inning rally.

The loss went to freshman right-hander Kyle Molnar (0-1) as he gave up four runs and seven hits in three-plus innings. Only one of the runs was earned as Cal Poly's three runs in the second inning all were unearned.

For the four-game weekend, Cal Poly hit just .240 as a team. Meyer was 3-for-9 (.333) while both Schuknecht and George were 5-for-16 (.313), Schuknecht driving in five runs and scoring four times.

Cal Poly wraps up a season-opening 12-game home stand with four more games this week, hosting Pepperdine (3-4) Tuesday night at 6 and San Francisco (1-8) for a three-game weekend series. Pepperdine lost two of three games to Texas A&M this weekend while San Francisco lost two of three against Hawai'i.