The rain stayed away and the Long Beach State Dirtbags kept rolling under new coach Eric Valenzuela on Saturday by clinching their second weekend series victory. Freshman starter Luis Ramirez made history with 12 strikeouts and the Dirtbags scored four times the seventh inning to beat No. 17 Wake Forrest 7-3.
LBSU (4-2) took the season opening series from Cal last weekend, and will go for the sweep of the Demon Deacons at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
Ramirez committed a throwing error on the first play of the game, and allowed a pair of unearned runs, but retired the final 17 batters he faced. He is the first Dirtbags freshman to strike out 12 batters since Jered Weaver did it in 2002.
“I just had to execute my pitches,” Ramirez said. “After that home run in the second inning I told myself ‘This is my time and I have to throw my stuff’ and it came out pretty good.”
The Dirtbags offense rallied to score six unanswered runs in the sixth and seventh innings as leadoff hitter Calvin Estrada picked up two more hits and two more RBIs. Connor Kokx, Thomas Greely and Tanner Carlson each had two hits.
LBSU junior righty Jonathan Lavallee (0-0, 9.00 ERA) will get the start against William Fleming (1-0, 4.50 ERA) for Wake Forrest. Regular Friday night starter Adam Seminaris won’t pitch this weekend due to a violation of team rules.
