Matt Summers

BASEBALL UC Irvine 10, Pacific 0 STOCKTON — Senior Drew Hillman homered and drove in four runs and junior Matt Summers threw seven strong innings to pace the visiting Anteaters Friday in the opener of a three-game Big West Conference series. Summers allowed six hits and struck out seven to improve to 5-2. Hillman launched a three-run homer in the eighth and also scored three runs and stole a base. Senior Jon Hurst homered and went three for five for the winners (22-8, 5-2 in conference)

BASEBALL UC Irvine 9, Sacramento State 5 IRVINE — Junior shortstop D.J. Crumlich went four for five with two runs batted in and senior left fielder Drew Hillman homered, tripled and had four RBIs to pace the host Anteaters in the first of a three-game nonconference series Friday at Anteater Ballpark. Junior first baseman Jordan Fox had two hits as the first five spots in the UCI batting order accounted for all 10 of the team's hits. Nick Hoover tossed 3 2/3 innings of scoreless, one-hit relief to earn the win, taking over for starter Matt Summers, who yielded six hits and four runs, two earned, in 4 1/3. UCI scored four in the first and Summers had an 8-3 lead going into the fifth.

FULLERTON — The UC Irvine baseball program made history while making a statement Friday night. The Anteaters, ranked No. 16 in the USA Today/ESPN poll, hammered perennial Big West Conference bully Cal State Fullerton, ranked No. 12 by Baseball America, 15-3, in the conference opener in front of 1,987 at the Titans' Goodwin Field. It was UCI's most lopsided win in the history of the series, which dates back to 1970 and spans 107 games. It extends the 'Eaters' winning streak to six, while halting the Titans' nine-game winning streak.

UC Irvine junior Matt Summers, who threw a no-hitter against Long Beach State Friday, has been named National Player of the Week by Collegiate Baseball, as well as Pitcher of the Week by the Big West Conference. Summers struck out five, walked one and faced just one more than the minimum to help UCI defeat the Dirtbags, 2-0, in the opener of their three-game conference series at UCI. Summers, in his first season as a full-time starter for the 'Eaters, is 10-2 with a 1.74 earned-run average.

IRVINE - On a night the UC Irvine baseball program celebrated its four no-hitters, it was the Anteaters offense that showed how little fun life can be on the other side of some mound mastery. UCI, ranked No. 21 by the National College Baseball Writers Assn. mustered just four hits, all singles, against visiting Washington. The Huskies (3-2) used three hurlers to complete a 3-0 victory in the opener of a three-game nonconference series Friday at Anteater Ballpark. The Anteaters (3-2)

Jason Dietrich, pitching coach the last two seasons for the UC Irvine baseball program, has been hired in the same position at Cal State Fullerton, he said Wednesday. Dietrich will replace Kirk Sarloos, who left after one season as the pitching coach with the Titans to take the same job at TCU. "It was a whole whirlwind thing that came out of nowhere," Dietrich said of the offer from Titans Coach Rick Vanderhook, which he accepted Tuesday night. "There was no one specific thing [behind the move]

LONG BEACH - UC Irvine sophomore pitcher Andrew Thurman needed only six days to work out the kink. The Anteaters' right-hander polished off a no-hitter in a 4-0 Big West Conference baseball victory over Long Beach State on Friday in front of 1,266 at Blair Field. Just six days before, his no-hit bid against Cal State Fullerton ended with a bounding infield single behind the mound. Friday, Thurman hit the leadoff batter, then retired 23 straight, before issuing his only walk with two outs in the eighth.

IRVINE — For a second straight start, Matt Summers stumped occupants of one dugout at Anteater Ballpark. But in contrast to his season debut, in which poor control prompted a mystified coaching staff to issue the UC Irvine pitcher an early hook, it was visiting Southern hitters that he bamboozled in eight dominant innings of the Anteaters' 7-1 baseball triumph. Summers, who walked four and hit three batters in 2 1/3 innings Feb. 18 against Nevada, while giving up no hits and just one earned run, consistently locked up batters and enticed more than two-dozen scouts on hand Friday.

IRVINE — The UC Irvine baseball team broke from the Big West Conference gate by breaking out of an offensive slump in a 9-6 victory over Cal State Northridge Friday night at Anteater Ballpark. The Anteaters did not, however, break from form, as they improved to 11-0 at home this season, which is a school record to open the season. Junior center fielder Christian Ramirez , a community college transfer who came into the game six for 35 in his Division I career, was four for four with a walk, a triple and a double to pace a 15-hit attack for the winners (16-6, 1-0 in conference)

IRVINE — Listed at 5-foot-9, 165 pounds, both of which may be a stretch, UC Irvine junior center fielder Christian Ramirez has been typecast as a key practitioner of small ball. And while he played that role well Friday night in the Anteaters' 6-2 Big West Conference series-opening baseball triumph over visiting Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, it was Ramirez' three-run triple over the right fielder's head that helped break things open in a four-run seventh inning. Ramirez, who had two sacrifice bunts to help produce runs in the fourth and sixth innings, also stole home to finalize the seventh-inning rally on a trick play.

Jason Dietrich, pitching coach the last two seasons for the UC Irvine baseball program, has been hired in the same position at Cal State Fullerton, he said Wednesday. Dietrich will replace Kirk Sarloos, who left after one season as the pitching coach with the Titans to take the same job at TCU. "It was a whole whirlwind thing that came out of nowhere," Dietrich said of the offer from Titans Coach Rick Vanderhook, which he accepted Tuesday night. "There was no one specific thing [behind the move]

LONG BEACH - UC Irvine sophomore pitcher Andrew Thurman needed only six days to work out the kink. The Anteaters' right-hander polished off a no-hitter in a 4-0 Big West Conference baseball victory over Long Beach State on Friday in front of 1,266 at Blair Field. Just six days before, his no-hit bid against Cal State Fullerton ended with a bounding infield single behind the mound. Friday, Thurman hit the leadoff batter, then retired 23 straight, before issuing his only walk with two outs in the eighth.

IRVINE - On a night the UC Irvine baseball program celebrated its four no-hitters, it was the Anteaters offense that showed how little fun life can be on the other side of some mound mastery. UCI, ranked No. 21 by the National College Baseball Writers Assn. mustered just four hits, all singles, against visiting Washington. The Huskies (3-2) used three hurlers to complete a 3-0 victory in the opener of a three-game nonconference series Friday at Anteater Ballpark. The Anteaters (3-2)

One strike away. Those three words will haunt the 2011 UC Irvine baseball team, much the same way "three outs away" provided a similarly painful reminder in 2008 that no trip to Omaha is secure until the 27th out is recorded in the second win of an NCAA Super Regional. UCI came within one pitch of upsetting No. 1 national seed Virginia in Game 3 of their Super Regional, winning the best-of-three series and earning the program's second trip to the College World Series on Monday at the Cavaliers' Davenport Field.

UC Irvine junior All-American pitcher Matt Summers has said he would make a motivational target of the first pitcher selected in the major league draft in which he went in the fourth round Tuesday to the Minnesota Twins. The Anteaters' right-hander, who seized Big West Pitcher of the Year honors by going 8-0 in his eight conference starts, has a few more rivals to try to outperform professionally after being the 78th pitcher selected, the 148th overall pick. What's more, Summers saw four Big West pitchers chosen ahead of him, a fact that rankled UCI Coach Mike Gillespie, who has marveled at the development of Summers from inconsistent reliever (an 8.36 ERA in 37 2/3 innings coming into this season)

UC Irvine All-American candidate Matt Summers will be the starting pitcher when the Anteaters open NCAA Regional play Friday against Fresno State at 2 p.m., UCI Coach Mike Gillespie said Tuesday. Gillespie said determining who would start subsequent games in the four-team, double-elimination Los Angeles Regional that also includes UCLA and San Francisco, would be decided later, based upon the opponent. Summers, a junior right-hander who threw a no-hitter in his final regular-season start, was named Big West Conference Pitcher of the Year on Monday.

UC Irvine junior Matt Summers, who threw a no-hitter against Long Beach State Friday, has been named National Player of the Week by Collegiate Baseball, as well as Pitcher of the Week by the Big West Conference. Summers struck out five, walked one and faced just one more than the minimum to help UCI defeat the Dirtbags, 2-0, in the opener of their three-game conference series at UCI. Summers, in his first season as a full-time starter for the 'Eaters, is 10-2 with a 1.74 earned-run average.

UC Irvine junior Matt Summers always wanted to be the center of attention on the baseball field. He just always figured he could do so without operating in the middle of the diamond. But after reluctantly giving up his center-field dreams this season, he has become the Anteaters' ace starting pitcher, an All-American candidate, and the likely Big West Conference Pitcher of the Year. The 6-foot-1, 205-pound right-hander is 9-2 with a 1.90 earned-run average entering his final regular-season start, Friday at 6:30 p.m. against Long Beach State in the first of a three-game series at Anteater Ballpark.

RIVERSIDE — It was fitting, perhaps, that UC Irvine junior ace Matt Summers kept posting zeroes during his complete-game two-hitter in a 12-0 thumping of host UC Riverside that opened a three-game Big West Conference series Friday night. Some believe Summers, who tied his career high with 10 strikeouts and threw 92 pitches in the Anteaters' first complete game of the season, continued to add to a now-consistent body of work that may help add a zero or two to a professional contract that looms after his selection in the June draft.