UCLA Season Ends On A Sour Note With 6-5 Loss To ASU

The Bruins closed out their 2009 season with a loss to #3 Arizona St., 6-5, in Tempe. Charles Brewer picked up the loss with 4.2 innings of four-run ball, while Mitchell Lambson's five innings of two-run relief earned him the win. Cody Decker was the star for the Bruins, hitting his 21st home run of the season in his final collegiate game.

Carlos Ramirez, who leads the Sun Devils in home runs, hit his 18th of the year with two-out in the first to put ASU ahead 1-0 early on.

The Bruins responded though with a little help from the Sun Devils. After Casey Haerther walked to lead off the second and was advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt, the Sun Devil second baseman made an error on a Tyler Rahmatulla ground ball to score Haerther.

Just one inning later, Gino Aielli drew a two-out walk to extend the inning and bring up Decker. Decker, a senior playing in his final game as a Bruin, turned on a pitch and deposited it over the left field fence to put the Bruins up 3-1.

The lead held until the fifth when Arizona St. started smacking the ball around. Following a pair of singles to begin the inning and a pop up, ASU had runners at first and third with one out. Ramirez then stroked a single to right field, scoring one run, but the throw from right was a bit wild and the runner from first ran wild. The runner was eventually thrown out at the plate on a play scored 9-5-6-3-2-3. A double followed by a single though scored two more and Arizona St. took a 4-3 lead after five innings of play.

Decker singled to lead off the UCLA sixth and took second on a one-out double by Brett Krill. Rahmatulla then yanked one through the left side of the infield to score Decker and even the game at four apiece.

ASU got the lead back in the bottom half of the sixth when a batter who led off the inning with a walk was driven home by a one-out single.

Ramirez tormented the Bruins one more time with a two-out single that brought home was proved to be the winning run.

Blair Dunlap homered to lead off the UCLA ninth and Dustin Quist reached on a bunt single to get the tying run on base. After being sacrificed to second though, Quist was left on base by his teammates to end UCLA's season with a 6-5 loss.

Dunlap was 1-4 on the game with a home run, while Decker was 2-4 with a home run, two RBI and two runs scored. Krill also chipped in with a 2-3 effort, including a double.

The Bruins finished the season 27-29 overall and 15-12 in Pac-10 play, which proved good enough for a third-place tie. Seniors Gino Aielli, Eddie Murray, Cody Decker, Brendan Lafferty, Jason Novak and Dustin Quist all saw their UCLA careers come to an end with a diappointing sub-.500 season, but all five did see action today. I will continue with my UCLA baseball twitter all offseason long, providing updates on Bruin in the pros, updates on Bruins in summer leagues, schedule notifications and any other news or thoughts. I will also have a season review posted on BN before the end of the month.