GAME RECAP: UCLA Rallies in Ninth to Eliminate Virginia Tech, Stay Alive in Los Angeles Regional

WESTWOOD, CA — The top-ranked Bruins weren’t ready to go home.

Trailing 5-3 with their season on the line in the bottom of the ninth at Jackie Robinson Stadium, UCLA scored three times — capped by Phoenix Call’s walk-off single — to beat Virginia Tech 6-5 on Saturday afternoon in an NCAA Los Angeles Regional elimination game.

The win keeps the Bruins (52-7) breathing and sends Virginia Tech (30-26) packing after its season-ending loss.

It was a back-and-forth slugfest that featured seven home runs and constant swings in momentum. Virginia Tech scratched across single runs in the third, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth. UCLA answered every time until the final frame, when it finally broke through for good.

Virginia Tech grabbed a 1-0 lead in the third on Sam Grube’s RBI single that scored Owen Petrich. The Bruins answered in the fourth when Cashel Dugger lifted a solo homer to right to tie it, then Jarrod Hocking laced a two-out double that brought home Phoenix Call for a 2-1 advantage.

Petrich tied the game with a homer in the fifth, but Will Gasparino answered right back with a solo shot to right, putting UCLA up 3-2.

The Hokies kept coming. Ethan Gibson’s seventh-inning homer made it 3-3. Ethan Ball’s solo blast in the eighth gave Virginia Tech its first lead since the third, 4-3.

In the ninth, Hudson Lutterman’s RBI single scored Gibson and pushed the margin to 5-3. That’s when the Bruins flipped the script.

Mulivai Levu led off the bottom half with a solo homer to right, cutting the deficit to one. Roman Martin followed immediately with a homer to left, knotting the score at 5-5 and bringing the home crowd to its feet.

Gasparino then reached base, and Call delivered the decisive blow — a single to left that scored Gasparino for the 6-5 walk-off win. Dominic Cadiz advanced to second on the play.

UCLA finished with 12 hits to just six for Virginia Tech. Gasparino went 2-for-5 with a homer, two runs scored and an RBI. Dugger and Hocking each collected two hits, as did Call. Levu and Martin added the biggest swings of the day in the ninth.

On the mound, Michael Barnett worked six innings, allowing three runs. Cal Randall and Zach Strickland each tossed a scoreless? frame in relief before Easton Hawk came on in the ninth. Hawk allowed the unearned? run but picked up the win (7-3) when the offense delivered in the bottom half. Virginia Tech’s Ethan Grim took the loss after surrendering the three-run ninth.

Both clubs entered the day in must-win mode after dropping their regional openers on Friday — UCLA to Saint Mary’s and Virginia Tech to Cal Poly. The Bruins now move on to face the loser of the Cal Poly-Saint Mary’s game tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. at Jackie Robinson Stadium.

For a team that has spent most of the season as the clear No. 1, this was the kind of gritty, never-say-die performance that separates the good from the special. UCLA found a way when it had to. The season continues.