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Noah Barba
Mark Duffel

Baseball

Roadrunners Start Five-Game Road Trip Tomorrow

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – After four home games last week and its sixth straight home series victory, the CSU Bakersfield baseball team will hit the road for a game at No. 8 UC Santa Barbara tomorrow and a three-game Western Athletic Conference series at Grand Canyon over the weekend.  The `Runners will continue their road trip next week when they head to Fresno State for the second time this season. 

Setting the Scene
With victories on Saturday and Sunday over Utah Valley, the Roadrunners won their sixth straight home series and fifth of this season.  Bakersfield defeated Santa Clara, Fairleigh Dickinson in four-game series during the non-conference portion of the season and has knocked off Seattle U, Northern Colorado and Utah Valley in league play.  The `Runners also defeated Chicago State in their final home series of the 2018 season.   

The Roadrunners finished last week at 2-3 after suffering defeats on Monday and Tuesday to future Big West opponents UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside. 

Damian Henderson and Jake Ortega led the offensive attack over the five games and provided late-game heroics in Saturday's victory over the Wolverines.  Trailing by two in the bottom of the ninth against Utah Valley, Ortega connected for his first career home run to tie the game at 6-6.  Later in the inning, with two outs, a full count and baserunners on first and second, Henderson blasted his first career home run to walk off the visiting Wolverines.  It was just the third walk-off home run in school history and the first since the 2010 season. 

For the week, Henderson led the team with a .417 average, a .917 slugging percentage and got on base half the time.  Ortega posted six hits in 15 at-bats, scored four times and had an OPS of 1.167.  Jesse Rowley continued to raise eyebrows this week, hitting .389 over the five games, including a .545 clip against Wolverines.  Rowley is now leading the WAC in batting average during conference play by nearly 40 points at .476.  As a team, the Roadrunners rank second in the conference during league action with a .290 team average. 

In Sunday's victory, Noah Cordova provided the ninth inning heroics as he struck out the final batter of the game with the tying run on third base to clinch the series.  Cordova tossed 4.2 shutout innings and had six strikeouts to earn his first career victory. 

Series History – UCSB
It will be the second game in eight days between the future conference rivals.  UCSB defeated the Roadrunners 4-1 in Bakersfield last Monday.  Tomorrow's starter Jorge Arellano, Jr. threw six innings for the Gauchos and did not allow and earned run.  UCSB already led 4-1 by the time Tyler Jorgensen knocked in Ryan Koch for CSUB's only run of the game.  The Gauchos took advantage of six Roadrunner errors to score three of their four runs. 

UCSB leads the all-time series 12-9, but Bakersfield owns a 6-4 record at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.  The Roadrunners are 4-12 all-time against top-10 opponents. Coincidentally, the Roadrunners last top-10 victory came against UC Santa Barbara on May 5 of 2015. Bakersfield is 3-3 against the Gauchos when they are nationally ranked and 16-43 all-time against ranked foes. CSUB's last victory over a ranked opponent came on March 6 of last season when it shutout UNLV 4-0 at Hardt Field. The highest ranked opponent the `Runners have defeated was No. 4 South Carolina on March 13, 2011.

Series History - GCU
The Lopes have dominated the all-time series between the two programs and own a 12-3 advantage.  Last season at Hardt Field, CSUB looked to be on pace to win its first-ever series against Grand Canyon, but lost in the series finale in 10 innings.  All-time, Bakersfield is just 1-5 in six games in Pheonix.
 
The `Runners' win in Game 2 of last season was an instant classic as they rallied for six runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to erase a 7-3 Lope lead and earned a 9-7 victory.  Jake Ortega had the go-ahead single and Noah Barba provided the insurance with sacrifice fly to score now CSUB manager Christian Deaton. The victory snapped a nine-game losing streak to their Arizona rivals.  Sunday's game was also a wild one.  GCU led 5-3 after six innings, but Ortega tied things up in the eighth with a base hit to score Buck Anderson.  However, Zach Malis drilled his third home run of the game in the 10th as the Lopes escaped Bakersfield with an 8-5 victory and a series win.
 
Tuesday's game at UCSB is set for 3:00 p.m. with the weekend series in the desert beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Friday. 
 
 
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Players Mentioned

Christian Deaton

#1 Christian Deaton

OF
5' 7"
Senior
L/L
Buck Anderson

#7 Buck Anderson

2B
5' 7"
Sophomore
S/R
Noah Barba

#2 Noah Barba

3B/OF
5' 11"
Senior
L/R
Ryan Koch

#23 Ryan Koch

C/1B
6' 1"
Senior
R/R
Jake Ortega

#33 Jake Ortega

C
5' 10"
Senior
L/R
Tyler Jorgensen

#10 Tyler Jorgensen

INF
6' 1"
Junior
L/R
Noah Cordova

#32 Noah Cordova

RHP
6' 5"
Junior
R/R
Damian Henderson

#11 Damian Henderson

OF
6' 1"
Sophomore
L/L
Jesse Rowley

#1 Jesse Rowley

1B
6' 1"
Junior
L/R

Players Mentioned

Christian Deaton

#1 Christian Deaton

5' 7"
Senior
L/L
OF
Buck Anderson

#7 Buck Anderson

5' 7"
Sophomore
S/R
2B
Noah Barba

#2 Noah Barba

5' 11"
Senior
L/R
3B/OF
Ryan Koch

#23 Ryan Koch

6' 1"
Senior
R/R
C/1B
Jake Ortega

#33 Jake Ortega

5' 10"
Senior
L/R
C
Tyler Jorgensen

#10 Tyler Jorgensen

6' 1"
Junior
L/R
INF
Noah Cordova

#32 Noah Cordova

6' 5"
Junior
R/R
RHP
Damian Henderson

#11 Damian Henderson

6' 1"
Sophomore
L/L
OF
Jesse Rowley

#1 Jesse Rowley

6' 1"
Junior
L/R
1B
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