• Box Score: UCLA 6, TCU 3
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A UCLA team that had never won a game in Omaha now finds itself one victory away from a chance to play for college baseball’s ultimate prize.
The Bruins backed the dominant pitching of Gerrit Cole with home runs by Cody Regis and Jeff Gelalich to produce Monday night’s 6-3 victory over TCU before 23,345 fans at Rosenblatt Stadium.
The victory moved the 50-14 Bruins into Friday’s Bracket One title round. TCU (52-13) drops into a 6 p.m. Wednesday elimination game against Florida State, which defeated Florida 8-5 earlier Monday. The TCU-Florida State winner would have to defeat UCLA twice to deny the Bruins a trip to next week’s best-of-three championship series.
“This team is on a mission,’’ UCLA coach John Savage said. “It’s already accomplished quite a bit. To win 50 games in college baseball says a lot about your character, but this team is not satisfied.’’
The Bruins will have 11-game winner Rob Rasmussen available to pitch on Friday. UCLA’s leading winner before its arrival in Omaha, Rasmussen will have to do something special to top the performances of Trevor Bauer and Cole in the first two games in Omaha.
Bauer limited Florida to six hits and struck out 11 in seven innings of Saturday’s 11-3 win over the third-seeded Gators. Cole came back Monday to shackle the CWS’ top hitting team on one hit for the first six innings.
After the Horned Frogs juiced up the crowd by scoring three times on Taylor Featherston’s bases-loaded triple with two out in the seventh, Cole roared back to finish strong. He struck out Aaron Schultz to strand Featherston at third, then needed one pitch to end the eighth after walking Bryan Holaday with two outs.
Cole retired Jason Coats on a forceout after a visit from Savage, who had been intent on bringing in closer Dan Klein to face the No. 3 hitter in the TCU lineup.
“Coach said he wanted to go to Klein, but I wanted the ball,’’ Cole said. “He has a lot of trust in me, and fortunately I got him (Coats) on the next pitch.’’
That finished a 13-strikeout performance that helped Cole win his 11th game of the season. Klein pitched around a one-out single in the ninth to finish the Horned Frogs, who came into the game hitting .341 but managed just six hits.
“Cole showed why he’s an All-American with the way he pitched after the seventh inning,’’ TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said. “That was really, really impressive.’’
To have a chance against Cole, Schlossnagle said, the Horned Frogs needed an equally strong effort from their starter, Kyle Winkler. But the sophomore right-hander couldn’t duplicate the dominant effort he turned in against Texas in the final game of the super regional, lasting just eight outs against UCLA.
The Bruins scored a run in each of the first two innings, then knocked Winkler from the game when Regis slammed a two-run homer with one out in the third. It was his ninth of the season, all coming since May 7.
Gelalich made it 5-0 later in the inning with his second homer of the season. Then, after Featherston’s triple had cut the lead to 5-3 in the top of the seventh, UCLA added its final run when Beau Amaral doubled, took third on a passed ball and scored on Niko Gallego’s sacrifice fly.
Amaral went 3 for 3, with a walk, and scored twice for the Bruins. In two games in Omaha, the freshman center fielder has reached base in nine of 10 plate appearances, scoring three times and knocking in two runs. “(He’s) as good a young player as you’re going to see in college,’’ said Savage, referring to Amaral.
Contact the writer:
679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com
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