Penn State baseball (25-16, 12-11 Big Ten) fell for the second straight day in Los Angeles against No. 15 UCLA (31-11, 15-5 Big Ten) as it was dominated from the start with a 9-1 defeat, narrowly avoiding a run-rule loss.

Mason Horwat got off to a solid start through three innings before the floodgates opened, and the offense couldn’t carry over the momentum from the ninth inning on Friday, nearly being shut out by the Bruins.

How It Happened

Unlike the first inning of the series opener, both offenses were silent to start Saturday.

Michael Barnett took the mound for UCLA and made quick work of Penn State’s top of the order, sitting them down 1-2-3 with two strikeouts. Horwat gave up a leadoff single, but got a lineout to center field before getting Mulivai Levu to ground into a 3-6 double play to end the inning.

Bryce Molinaro led off the second with a single but was eventually stranded on third base. A one-out triple off of Horwat led to UCLA taking a 1-0 lead after an RBI single by Payton Brennan.

Ryan Weingartner got a two-out single in the third and looked to steal his 25th base, but was gunned down on a pitch-out to end the inning, his first time being caught stealing this season. Horwat stayed steady, keeping it at 1-0 after three.

Jack Porter hit a double off the wall with one out in the fourth to give Penn State a runner in scoring position, but nobody could drive him in. Aside from the first and ninth innings of Friday’s game, Penn State has been ghastly with runners on base.

Penn State’s failure to tie the game came back to bite it, as Horwat gave up a leadoff home run in the bottom half of the inning to Roch Cholowsky. That home run started a string of baserunners for UCLA that saw the lead explode to 6-0 by the time Horwat was removed for Mason Butash with two outs.

Butash gave up UCLA’s third home run of the day in the fifth to make it 8-0, while the Penn State offense continued to get a runner on and strand it every inning.

Butash was pulled after allowing another run in the sixth for Will Andrews, who got through it unscathed, but UCLA led 9-0. In the top of the seventh, Matt Maloney grounded into a double play to end the inning, moving Penn State to 0-for-10 with runners on base.

Good work by Andrews kept the Nittany Lions from being run-ruled with two scoreless innings. Penn State was an out away from being blanked, but a pair of singles by Molinaro and Jesse Jaconski got them on the scoreboard before the final out was recorded.

Horwat took the loss, falling to 4-4 on the season.

Takeaways

• After back-to-back strong efforts against ranked opponents this week, Penn State looked overmatched from the start on Saturday afternoon. The strong pitching that kept them afloat was nonexistent at Jackie Robinson Field for this one.
• Penn State’s offense has scored in only three of the 18 innings in this series. Against ranked opponents, they’ve scored in five of 27. While they rarely go down 1-2-3 in an inning, their recent struggles with runners on base need to be fixed if the team wants to make a run in next month’s Big Ten Tournament.
• This could’ve been a lot uglier for Penn State. UCLA flew out to the warning track at least five times in this one. Meanwhile, Porter’s fourth-inning double was the only one that got close to going out for the Nittany Lions.

What’s Next

Penn State looks to avoid the sweep at Jackie Robinson Field in Los Angeles at 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 27.