Box Score

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- UC Davis senior Tanner Bily finished with a career-high tying four hits and the visiting Aggies had the tying run on base after scoring four times in the ninth, but the rally came up just short as host Long Beach State escaped with a 9-8 victory and a sweep of their Big West Conference weekend series on Sunday afternoon at Blair Field.

UC Davis suffered its fifth straight loss, falling to 28-25-1 overall and 7-14 in Big West play heading into its final series of the season against Cal Poly at Dobbins Stadium next weekend. Long Beach State improved to 28-23 overall and 11-10 in conference play.

Trailing by as many as seven runs in the game and reeling following a seven-run first inning by the home team, the Aggies chipped away and threatened to come all the way back with a huge ninth inning. Down 9-4 entering with only three outs to work with, a pinch-hit double by Mason Novak got the rally started and he moved up 90 feet when Bily collected his fourth hit -- a single to right -- to put runners on the corners.

Tino Lipson's ground ball to the right side got Novak home, but UC Davis wasn't done. Nick Lynch was hit by a pitch to put two on for Austin March, whose single through the left side was misplayed in the outfield, allowing Bily to come home and make it 9-6. A ground ball by Izaak Silva scored another and John Williams drove home March to make it a one-run game.

However, Ty Provencher closed out the game, stranding the tying run on base by getting ahead in the count against Kevin Barker and inducing him into a game-inning ground out to secure the win.

Darren McCaughan (4-2) earned the win in relief of starter Tanner Brown, allowing two runs on five hits over 3.1 innings after Brown had gone the first three. Provencher's save was his seventh of the year, surrendering Williams' single in two-thirds of an inning.

Max Cordy (8-4) suffered the loss, allowing seven runs on five hits in just one-third of an inning (eight batters) on 28 pitches. Spencer Henderson and three other relievers held down the fort, joining forces to allow just one earned run on seven hits the rest of the way to keep the Aggies alive.

For sophomore right-hander Zach Stone, who pitched a perfect eighth inning with a strikeout, it was his 31st appearance of the season -- passing Andy Suiter (2008) for the most by an Aggie pitcher in a single campaign.

Bily, who scored four times, led-off the game with a single and moved to third on Lynch's 31st double of the year with one out. That brought up March, who rapped a single to right, scoring Bily for the 1-0 lead.

The advantage was short-lived, however, as Long Beach State sent 11 batters to the plate in the home half of the inning to take a commanding 7-1 advantage. After a sacrifice bunt, the next six hitters in the LBSU line up reached base safely -- four of those via hits -- to knock Cordy from the game, and Long Beach followed with a run-scoring ground ball and an RBI single to cap the scoring in the inning.

Long Beach State added another on back-to-back doubles in the second before the Aggies began to chip away. Single runs in the third (on a wild pitch),  fifth (RBI single by Lynch), and seventh (RBI single by Lynch), made it 8-4, and Long Beach added an unearned run in its half of the seventh to set the stage for a wild ninth inning.

Lipson and Lynch each finished with three hits to help the Aggies out-hit their hosts, 18-12, as eight of the nine starters in the batting order finished with at least one. The 18 hits tied a season high set at Seattle on March 7.

Next weekend's series with the Mustangs begins on Thursday (May 21) at 2:30 p.m., with games two and three to follow on Friday (May 22) at 2:30 p.m., and "Senior Day" Saturday (May 23) at 1 p.m.

GAME NOTES: Bily's four runs scored were one shy of the school's single-game record set by Sam Viney against Cal State Stanislaus and tied by Matt Zumstein against Pacific University in 1999... Lipson's three hits gave him a team-high 20 multi-hit games this season, while Lynch's three hits marked his team-best ninth game with three hits or more... With his double in the first, Lynch needs just one more double to tie Nevada's Joe Inglett (1997-00) for 10th on the Big West all-time list, and two more to break into the NCAA top 20 for a single season.

Long Beach State 9, UC Davis 8 (May 17, 2015 at Long Beach, Calif.)
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UC Davis............ 101 010 104  -  8 18  2      (28-25-1, 7-14 Big West)
Long Beach State.... 710 000 10X  -  9 12  1      (28-23, 11-10 Big West)
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Pitchers: UC Davis - Cordy, Max; Henderson, Spencer (1); Hamby, Nat (6); Peters, Blake (6); Stone, Zach (8) and Silva, Izaak. Long Beach State - Brown, Tanner; McCaughan, Darren(4); Strufing, Ryan(7); McGeorge, Austin(7); Lombana, Logan(9); Provencher, Ty(9) and Hutting, Eric.
Win-McCaughan, Darren(4-2)  Save-Provencher, Ty(7)  Loss - Cordy, Max (8-4)  T-3:20  A-2117
Weather: cloudy, 67 degrees