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UCI’s baseball team, the regular season Big West champion. (Photo courtesy UCI Athletic Communications).
UC Irvine’s baseball team, the regular season champion from the Big West Conference, faces Arizona State University Friday at 6 p.m. at Jackie Robinson Stadium in the opening round of the NCAA Los Angeles Regional.
No. 2-seeded UCI is 41-15 overall while No. 3 ASU is 35-22. The game will be televised live on ESPN2.
Right-hander Trevor Hansen is scheduled to pitch for UCI vs. ASU’s Ben Jacobs. The double elimination tournament continues through Monday. Big West co-champion UCLA (42-16) is the top seed and Fresno State (31-27) is the fourth seed. UCLA plays Fresno State at 1 p.m. Friday.
UCI had a number of Big West Awards. UC Irvine picking up Big West Field Player of the Year Colin Yeaman; pitcher of the Year Ricky Ojeda and Coach of the Year Ben Orloff. It’s the first time a team has won each award since 2015.
The Sun Devils and Anteaters have met 20 times dating back to the 1970s where UCI as a Division II school defeated top-ranked Division I ASU and produced four wins over the Sun Devils and 1973 and 1974 in years following CWS runner-up finishes for ASU.
UCI leads the series 11-9 and has won six straight including two home wins in 2022 and a series sweep at Tempe in 2023. The teams also met twice in the postseason back in the 2007 College World Series where ASU won the opener, 5-4, before UC Irvine won an elimination game downing the Sun Devils on a 10th-inning walkoff, 8-7.
—Courtesy UCI Athletic Communications