Looks like the baseball team is not making things easy for itself. They dropped a roller coaster game last night against the Titans setting up a decisive game 7 tonight at Fullerton. From the official recap:

The UCLA baseball team dropped an 11-8 decision at Cal State Fullerton on Sunday evening, forcing a decisive game seven in the Fullerton Regional double-elimination format. Shortstop Brandon Crawford led the Bruins with a 2-for-4 effort, three RBI, three runs and his second home run in as many days.

UCLA (33-26) pounded out 17 hits in the loss, as seven Bruins registered multi-hit efforts. Second baseman Alden Carrithers, right fielder Brady Dolan and center fielder Blair Dunlap each went 3-for-5. Catcher Ryan Babineau and first baseman Casey Haerther each were 2-for-5 with one run and one RBI.

Cal State Fullerton (40-20) led throughout the game, but registered the decisive hit on a three-RBI double by second baseman Joel Weeks in the bottom of eighth, expanding its 8-5 lead to 11-5. Weeks was 2-for-5 with three RBI.

Titan right-hander Michael Morrison (2-2) earned the victory in relief, allowing just one run and three hits in 2.1 innings. UCLA left-hander Gavin Brooks (6-3) was tagged with his third loss of the season, allowing four runs (three earned) and one hit in 1.1 innings. Brooks issued three walks and hit two batters.

Cal State Fullerton's Adam Jorgenson registered his team-leading 11th save. Jorgenson, who entered the game with a two-run cushion (7-5) with two outs in the top of the seventh, allowed three runs and four hits in the ninth inning.

Titan right fielder Erik Komatsu led Cal State Fullerton at the plate with a 2-for-4 effort, totaling a team-leading three runs and two RBI.

I was hoping the second season would allow Gavin Brooks to shake off the disappointing regular season and start fresh. But it sounds like he was doomed from the get go by the same control problem, which seemed to have plagued him the entire season.

I guess the silver lining from last night was how the Bruins continue to swing their bats well during this post season. 17 hits against the Titans. Rye had mentioned in the comments that Renken who started against UCLA yesterday had pitched against us earlier in the season and had allowed only 3 hits and 1 run with 10 Ks in 7 innings. Last night Renken lasted only 4.1 innings, giving up 10 hits and 4 earned runs (with 6 Ks).

I haven’t seen the info. re. today’s starters. But hopefully the Bruins get better and more consistent pitching today. If they can combine with that the hitting form they have been last few days, hopefully we should be all right. As always we will have a game thread up for game 7 tonight.

Moving on, wanted to pass on couple of interesting notes from Dohn’s blog. We will start with football. Dohn has this scoop on the bruhahahaha re. Southern California’s walk-on video shenanigans:

A few weeks ago, while I was on vacation, there was quite a bit of chatter about UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel using the (USC assistant) Brandon Carroll walk-on video in recruiting against the Trojans.
In talking to my sources, they did not think Neuheisel used the video, or pointed it out to recruits, nor did Neuheisel tell his assistants to use the video to shed unfavorable light on the Trojans.
That said, the sources did not know if any of UCLA's assistants used the video to recruit negatively against USC.

Funny stuff. I still don’t get how the Southern Cal athletic office allowed the uploading of that video on YouTube. Again I think the way they have embraced is New Media is very cool. But still … it is all about the content. In this case the content … well I am not going waste any more time on that.

And speaking of wasting time, apparently Alabama is making a run at J’Mison Morgan:

I've heard from a couple of sources that Alabama is making another push at UCLA hoops commit J'mison Morgan. Those same sources believe Morgan is sold on UCLA and will wind up in Westwood when the first summer session begins later this month, but since he cannot sign a letter of intent, expect schools to keep pushing in their attempts until he arrives in Westwood.

Those schools would be better off pursuing recruits who will actually come to their schools than going after a kid who is dead set on playing for the best basketball program in the country. So despite Dohn’s alarm I don’t believe there is anything to see here. Dohn should spend more time getting scoop on Alex Stepheson, who will possibly emerge as the next big story of this eventful off season.

See you guys when I put up decisive game 7 open thread tonight (first pitch around 8 pm PST). The question I have for everyone should we still stick with the softball "MOJO" after last night? Lemme know in the comment thread.

GO BRUINS.