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After Surprise Loss By Star Gerrit Cole, UCLA On Brink Of Elimination It’s hard to imagine a team with two of the country’s top pitching prospects getting knocked off in the double-elimination first round of the College World Series. Nevertheless, UCLA faces that prospect tonight as they battle UC Irvine for a trip to the super regionals. The Bruins hold a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning at this writing, so they may well continue their comeback from a stunning opening loss to fourth-seeded San Francisco. Still, with Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer having started the first two games, UCLA is counting on the less-heralded Zach Weiss to hold down the lead tonight. Cole, a leading candidate for the top pick in tomorrow’s MLB draft, took the fall in the stunning opener, in which the Dons triumphed 3-0. Bauer, also projected as a top 10 pick, kept his team alive (and set the Pac-10 strikeout record for a season) with a Game 2 victory over Fresno State. The third-seeded Anteaters aren’t any pushovers themselves, coming into the postseason with a 39-16 record. They’ve ridden a potent offense led by Jordan Leyland (five RBIs in the opener against Fresno State) to a 2-0 record in the regional, but will need to come from behind tonight if they don’t want to face a winner-take-all game tomorrow.
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