UCLA Finishes Off Sweep Of Washington With 3-0 Win

UCLA's Pac-12 title defense started perfectly on Sunday as they completed their series sweep of Washington with a 3-0 win to extend their win streak over the Huskies to 17 games. Once again, pitching did the job for the Bruins, who threw 31 consecutive scoreless innings to finish the series and improve to 15-3 overall and 3-0 in the Pac-12.

Grant Watson led the way on the mound today, becoming another in a long line of pitchers to have his way with the Huskies. The southpaw allowed just four hits in six scoreless innings to pick up his fourth win of the season. Ryan Deeter backed him up with a scoreless frame before Zack Weiss worked 0.2 innings to set up the rubber-armed David Berg, who earned his fifth save of the year.

As is their wont, the Bruins struck first. Chris Keck and Shane Zeile singled with one out in the second inning before Cody Regis walked to load the bases. Trent Chatterton then just had to lift a fly ball to center so Keck could tag and score for a 1-0 UCLA lead.

Pat Valaika singled-handedly doubled the Bruins' lead the following inning when he hit his second homer of the season. The junior jumped on the first pitch he saw and crushed it out to left for a solo shot and UCLA was ahead 2-0.

Those two runs would prove to be more than enough for Watson, who wasn't at his best, but was still plenty good enough. Watson hit a batter in the first and allowed two singles in the second, but neither scored. A hit by pitch started the third too, but Watson had no trouble getting out of that frame.

With Watson keeping the Huskies at bay, the pressure was off the UCLA offense, and they hit like it. It took until the eighth inning before they strung together multiple hits in the same inning, but when they finally did in the eighth, they made it count.

Valaika singled to leadoff the eighth before taking second on a wild pitch. Keck then laced a double just inside the right field line, allowing Valaika to score easily and the Bruins led 3-0.

Just like Watson ran into some trouble, all of which he got out of, Berg did the same in the ninth. After throwing four innings on Saturday, getting a four-out save on Sunday may have been a bit much and he allowed two singles to start the ninth, but he managed to get out of it without a run across to put a bow on a dominating pitching weekend and series sweep for UCLA.