Glendora’s Adam Plutko and Bishop Amat’s David Berg showed the nation Sunday night what the San Gabriel Valley already knew — Area baseball rocks.
Plutko, who led Glendora to its only CIF-Southern Section divisional title in 2010, gave up four hits over seven innings and Berg, who won a divisional title with Amat in 2011, closed the ninth for his 22nd save to lead UCLA to a 2-1 victory over No. 4 Lousiana State in the College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
UCLA improved to 45-17 and will face North Carolina State, which beat North Carolina, in a winner’s bracket game at 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
The Bruins, who improved to 6-0 in the postseason, scored both of its runs off errors, including a fielding miscue in the eighth that scored pinch-runner Christopher Bono from second with two outs.
LSU put runners on first and second with two outs before Berg induced a fly out to right field to end it and advance UCLA to Tuesday’s winner’s bracket game. The Bruins are at the CWS for the third time in four seasons, including making the championship series in 2010.
UCLA coach John Savage: “It was quite a game. You’re talking about (LSU pitcher Aaron) Nola and Plutko really pitching as advertised. I’m very proud of Adam and proud of our team. That was a grind. You’re talking about a crowd that was certainly in the favor of LSU. We anticipated that, and at the end of the day, it was our type of game. Fortunately, we came out. It’s game one of the World Series, so there’s no celebration, but in the end it could have gone either way. We’re a resilient bunch. We played a lot of tight games all season long. Tonight was somewhat of a typical game for us, and we came out on top. I’m proud of our team this evening.”
Adam Plutko (interview with ESPN): “I have trust in my guys. The way we strung at-bats together was really special. We competed all nite. I just stayed with my game plan. It’s what I do. There are no bad hops in the air, I let my guys run underneath them.”