Teams: UC Davis vs. Santa Clara; at Cal Poly
Records: Aggies 15-26 (8-7); Broncos 17-27; Mustangs 21-21, (10-8)
Where: Dobbins Stadium; Baggett Stadium – San Luis Obispo, Calif.
When: Today at 2:30 p.m.; Friday at 6 p.m.; Saturday at 6 p.m.; Sunday at 1 p.m.
Who to watch: With a 2.00 earned run average in 27 innings pitched, relief pitcher Tom Briner can get the Aggies out of a jam.
The junior from Redding, Calif. played a large role in Saturday’s narrow 5-4 win over Pacific. Briner entered the game in the eighth and struck out two Tigers to leave the bases loaded to end the frame.
In the ninth, Briner sealed the victory by striking out the side for the save – an outing that was nothing to sneeze at, according to coach Rex Peters.
“It was one of the most impressive closing pitching performances I’d seen in quite some time,” Coach Peters said. “He had a good fastball with some movement on it. It was pretty impressive.”
Did you know? One goal for the Aggies is to finish in the top half of the Big West Conference, Peters said.
UC Davis currently sits at fifth place in the league, tied in conference matchups with Long Beach State.
Preview: From junior Brett Morgan’s walk-off single to beat San Jose State to Briner’s first-rate performance on the mound at Pacific, a six-game win streak made last week a good week for Aggie baseball.
“It was a combination of everything,” Peters said. “You have to be playing good baseball to win six in a row. That entails quality pitching, and most of our guys were giving us seven-plus good innings. And then you have to get some quality hits. All through that six-game win streak, we were doing all of those things.”
But the 2010-11 season is far from over.
After facing Stanford in Palo Alto on Tuesday, UC Davis still has 12 games on the schedule, starting today.
The Aggies come back home to Dobbins Stadium today to face Santa Clara.
The game will mark the third and final contest between UC Davis and Santa Clara this year, enough to break the 1-1 season series tie.
On Friday, the Aggies will then hit the road once again. This time, it will be for a three-game series against the Mustangs in San Luis Obispo.
Cal Poly sits in the three spot in the Big West, with just three more conference losses than second-place UC Irvine.
– Grace Sprague
