UCLA kicks off Road to Omaha against home-town team

Other fat guy Sam Strong here at Jackie Robinson Stadium for the Los Angeles regional of the NCAA baseball tournament. I’ll be posting here periodically throughout the weekend, keeping track of No. 1 seed in this regional and No. 2 national seed UCLA.

No. 3 seed New Mexico just took Game 1 so the Bruins will face the Lobos if they can beat Creighton tonight. UNM can definitely hit the ball and a few of the national bloggers here are picking them to win the regional. Sophomore third baseman D.J. Peterson, who is a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award (baseball’s Heisman) was 4-for-4 Friday with a two-run home run.

One interesting note on Creighton that I’m not sure a lot of people realize: The university is located in Omaha, Neb. so folks here are jokingly calling it “the road home” for them. Their Friday starter, junior lefty Ty Blach, is 6-5 on the year with a 2.64 ERA and just pitched a one-hit shutout in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament to get the BlueJays into the field.

A friendly reminder to follow me on Twitter if you want more timely updates.

Here are your lineups for tonight’s game:

Creighton

5 LF Brad McKweon
4 1B Nick Judkins
2 3B Chance Ross
10 C Anthony Bemboom
13 CF Mike Gerber
7 DH Scott Thornburg
11 SS Alex Staehely
3 2B Jake Peter
22 RF Brennan Murphy

31 LHP Ty Blach

UCLA

25 CF Beau Amaral
8 C Tyler Heineman
7 LF Cody Keefer
20 RF Jeff Gelalich
11 2B Trevor Brown
10 SS Pat Valaika
14 DH Shane Zeile
18 1B Cody Regis
3 3B Kevin Kramer

9 RHP Adam Plutko