{"id":289322,"date":"2026-04-28T06:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T06:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/289322\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T06:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T06:08:10","slug":"despite-rankings-gap-no-1-ucla-baseball-falls-9-6-to-sacramento-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/289322\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite rankings gap, No. 1 UCLA baseball falls 9-6 to Sacramento State"},"content":{"rendered":"

After trailing in each of the first two games of the series, the Bruins still emerged victorious. <\/p>\n

But in the weekend\u2019s final contest, the Hornets\u2019 lead proved too much to overcome. <\/p>\n

No. 1 UCLA baseball (39-4, 21-0 Big Ten) fell to Sacramento State (20-25, 5-4 WAC) 9-6 on Sunday afternoon at Jackie Robinson Stadium. The Bruins suffered their first loss in a weekend series since their inaugural series of the season Feb.15, when they were defeated 8-7 in the final game of the set by UC San Diego. <\/p>\n

Sacramento State entered Sunday\u2019s matchup ranked 139th in the nation in RPI, which is lower than 15 of the 17 teams in the Big Ten, none of whom have beaten UCLA this season. <\/p>\n

Despite the sizable rankings gap between the two squads, the Hornets kept the Bruins close the entire weekend before finally breaking through in their final attempt. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to face adversity a little bit,\u201d said coach John Savage. \u201cIt\u2019s been all smooth sailing. They\u2019re kids, and they need reality checks. This is a good check. And we won the series.\u201d <\/p>\n

UCLA starter and junior right-hander Landon Stump opened the door for the visitors to take control of the game. After allowing no baserunners in either of the first two innings, Stump quickly got himself into trouble in the third frame by walking the first two batters that he faced. <\/p>\n

\"(RubyJunior right-hander Landon Stump finishes his pitching motion. (Ruby Galbraith\/Daily Bruin staff)<\/p>\n

After getting two outs, Stump allowed two doubles and a home run, affording the Hornets five runs and a lead they wouldn\u2019t relinquish for the remainder of the contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be able to pitch out of problems,\u201d Savage said. \u201cYou make that a two-spot, maybe a three-spot. You can\u2019t make it a five. He\u2019s a junior \u2013 he\u2019s got to be able to step up and close that inning out a lot sooner than he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s start marked Stump\u2019s worst appearance of the season. <\/p>\n

The Morgan Hill, California, local hadn\u2019t surrendered more than three earned runs in a contest this season. Stump also hadn\u2019t allowed a single earned run and just five baserunners in his last two starts combined. <\/p>\n

Despite falling behind 5-1, the Bruins began to crawl back into the contest in the fourth and fifth frames. A sacrifice fly hit by freshman second baseman Aiden Aguayo and a solo shot by junior shortstop Roch Cholowsky brought the Bruins within two.<\/p>\n

While the production brought the offense back into the game, freshman right-hander Elai Iwanaga helped keep the Sacramento State offense at bay, tossing two scoreless innings and stranding multiple runners in scoring position. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have this saying, \u2018Got to NP it,\u2019\u201d Iwanaga said. \u201cTurn a negative into a positive and in any way possible, just trying to attack the next hitter and not worry about the guy on third base.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hornets\u2019 offense would find additional momentum in the sixth and seventh frames, taking advantage of the Bruins\u2019 defensive errors, despite posting a .981 fielding percentage this season \u2013 a top-20 mark in the nation. <\/p>\n

With senior right-hander Jack O\u2019Connor on the bump in the sixth inning, junior third baseman Roman Martin let a routine ground ball get by him, allowing the runner to score later in the inning on a sacrifice fly. <\/p>\n

The next inning, Sacramento State would score another three runs on a rally fueled by three free passes and another Bruin defensive error. After redshirt junior southpaw Chris Grothues hit a batter to start the inning, the next batter singled, but a throwing error by Cholowsky allowed a run to score as the other runner advanced to second.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur defense picks us up 99% of the time,\u201d said sophomore catcher Kasen Khansarinia. \u201cThey\u2019re going to mess up \u2013 it\u2019s baseball. So we have to find a way to pick them back up and get right back to it tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Grothues was removed, junior right-hander Justin Lee struggled to execute on the mound as well, getting just one out but issuing two walks and allowing two well-struck singles to finish off the Hornets\u2019 rally. <\/p>\n

\"(KaiJunior shortstop Roch Cholowsky arrives to home plate to celebrate after hitting a home run. (Kai Dizon\/Daily Bruin senior staff)<\/p>\n

Down 9-3, the Bruin offense quickly proved that it could not yet be counted out. With runners on first and second in the bottom of the seventh, Cholowsky hammered his second home run of the day \u2013 his 17th of the year.<\/p>\n

The home run was also his fourth in his last four games, a quick turnaround for the prospective No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming 2026 MLB Draft following a previous seven-game homerless streak. <\/p>\n

Later that same inning, redshirt junior right fielder Payton Brennan stepped up to the plate representing the possible game-tying run with two outs and runners on first and second. <\/p>\n

With a 2-2 count, Brennan swung in front of an outside changeup to end the inning. His at-bat effectively sealed the game for the Bruins, as his plate appearance would be the last time the game-tying run stood in the batter\u2019s box. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe response will be there,\u201d Savage said. \u201cNonconference bye weekends have always been tough for everybody. It\u2019s just the nature of the beast. You got a team that is a pretty good team, but they\u2019re 19-24. But they got a lot of good players. They\u2019re very well coached.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After trailing in each of the first two games of the series, the Bruins still emerged victorious. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-289322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}