December 4, 2024

OC Sports Zone: Community First

OC players McLain and Curialle help UCLA capture sweep over UC Riverside

UCLA Athletics - 2019 UCLA Baseball Media Day portraits, Jackie Robinson Stadium, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA January 10th, 2019 Copyright Don Liebig/ASUCLA McLain_Matt_003.NEF

Former Beckman star Matt McLain helped UCLA record a sweep over UC Riverside. (Photo courtesy UCLA Athletic Media Relations)

Two Orange County standouts Matt McLain (Beckman) and Michael Curialle (JSerra) had big days at the plate Sunday to help UCLA’s baseball team complete a sweep of UC Riverside with an 8-0 victory.

The Bruins (3-0) got off to a great start when Curialle, a freshman second baseman and McLain, a sophomore shortstop, hit back to back solo home runs in the bottom of the first inning.

It was the second home run of the year for both players.

“I thought offensively we did a good job all weekend, we come out and hit two solo home runs today then put up four in the third – we had a really good approach and we can build of that,” said UCLA Coach John Savage.”It was a good team weekend, I thought we played well in all phases. Really good defense, didn’t make any errors all weekend, handled the ball. For the most part we threw strikes. Collectively it was a solid weekend.”

McLain (2-for-4, two RBI) and Curialle (2-for-5) led UCLA’s offense while freshman first baseman JT Schwartz (Corona del Mar) was 1-for-3 with his first career stolen base.

McLain also had a big game on Saturday in the Bruins 9-1 win over UC Riverside. He had a two-run home run and a two-run single in the eighth inning.

Source: UCLA Athletic media relations