Things couldn\u2019t have gone much better for the UCLA and USC baseball teams in their NCAA regionals openers on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Keyed by seven multi-hit efforts, 15th-seeded UCLA banged out a season-high 22 hits and rolled to a 19-4 victory over Fresno State at Jackie Robinson Stadium.<\/p>\n
USC got three hits and three RBIs from Adrian Lopez to back a stellar start by Caden Aoki as the Trojans breezed to a 13-1 victory over TCU in Corvallis, Oregon, their first NCAA regional win since 2015.<\/p>\n
Both teams advanced to winner\u2019s bracket games on Saturday night against opponents to be determined.<\/p>\n
Roman Martin went 4 for 6, scoring three runs and driving in three more for UCLA (43-16). Blake Balsz, Payton Brennan, Phoenix Call and Mulivai Levu all had three-hit games, while Roch Cholowsky and AJ Salgado posted two each. Brennan, Martin and Cashel Dugger each homered. Levu drove in five runs, while Brennan plated four.<\/p>\n
Chris Grothues (2-1) picked up the win in relief of Michael Barnett, who gave up two earned runs on six hits in 4\u2153 innings. Jack Anker (9-5) took the loss, surrendering six earned runs on 10 hits in five innings. Bobby Blandford and Griffen Sotomayor logged two hits each for the Bulldogs (31-28), who got homers from Blandford and Eddie Saldivar.<\/p>\n
Eight Bruins batted in the first inning and four of them came around to score. Leadoff man Dean West was hit by a pitch for the first of three times and made it home on Martin\u2019s one-out single. A Salgado groundout cashed in Levu\u2019s single and Brennan and Balsz added run-scoring hits.<\/p>\n
Fresno State got on the board in the third, as a sacrifice fly by Griffen Sotomayor scored Cam Schneider. Schneider led off the inning with a single before moving over on a wild pitch and a groundout.<\/p>\n
UCLA answered the Bulldogs\u2019 third-inning run with two of its own. Martin\u2019s second hit of the day carried over the left-field fence for his eighth home run. Salgado followed with a double and reached third on a groundout before Balsz singled him in.<\/p>\n
Fresno State capitalized on a leadoff double by Blandford in the fourth, with Justin Stransky\u2019s groundout bringing the run home following a wild pitch.<\/p>\n
The Bruins broke the game open in the seventh, sending 10 to the plate and doubling their scoring output. Singles by Martin and Salgado got things started. Martin scored on a Brennan groundout and Balsz singled once more. Call and West added RBIs before Levu hit a bases-clearing double to left.<\/p>\n
Saldivar and Blandford homered for the Bulldogs in the eighth, but UCLA would bat around again in the bottom half. Brennan smashed a two-run home run over the batter\u2019s eye and Dugger added a solo shot. Levu and Martin registered two more run-scoring hits and Aidan Espinoza\u2019s groundout made it 19-4.<\/p>\n
UCLA will face the winner of Friday night\u2019s matchup between Arizona State and UC Irvine on Saturday at 6 p.m. Fresno State will play an elimination game against the Friday night loser on Saturday at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
In the Corvallis Regional \u2026<\/p>\n
USC 13, TCU 1: Aoki (6-4) gave up four hits in eight innings with six strikeouts and no walks for USC (36-21), which will meet the winner of the nightcap between top-seeded Oregon State and No. 4 seed Saint Mary\u2019s on Saturday at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
Lopez had an RBI single in the sixth and a two-run single in the seventh as USC scored three runs in each inning.<\/p>\n
Aoki allowed his only run on a solo homer to Sawyer Strosnider in the fourth. Sax Matson pitched a scoreless ninth.<\/p>\n
USC\u2019s Brayden Dowd and Richard Tejeda had three hits apiece and combined for three RBIs and four runs scored. Abbrie Covarrubias went 0 for 2 but drove in two runs and scored three.<\/p>\n
TCU starter Tommy LaPour (8-3) allowed three runs on six hits in three innings. Louis Rodriguez followed and was tagged for three runs in 2\u2153.<\/p>\n
TCU (39-19) will play an elimination game against the loser on Saturday at noon.<\/p>\n
USC has won the College World Series 12 times \u2013 most recently in 1998. The Trojans have made 21 appearances in the CWS but none since 2001.<\/p>\n
The Horned Frogs have made six CWS appearances \u2013 most recently in 2023 \u2013 and never won it.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: May 30, 2025 at 5:35 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things couldn\u2019t have gone much better for the UCLA and USC baseball teams in their NCAA regionals openers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[5,648,1703,1694,2341,185,18075,18076],"class_list":{"0":"post-67519","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-college-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-college-baseball","10":"tag-college-sports","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-baseball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ucla-sports","15":"tag-usc-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114599697086083205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}