Irvine Defeats Stanford to Reach Playoffs

The UC Irvine men’s volleyball team clinched its first Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament berth with a 15-8, 13-15, 15-11, 15-9 victory over Stanford Saturday in front of 1,200 at Irvine’s Crawford Hall.

Donnie Rafter had 25 kills and Mike Rupp had 16 kills and 12 digs for ninth-ranked Irvine (14-10, 11-8 in conference).

Patrick Klein had 40 kills for Stanford (10-12, 7-12).

The MPSF tournament begins next Saturday and pairings will be announced today.

In nonconference baseball:

Chapman 3, UC San Diego 2 (11)--Matt Barcellona hit a sacrifice fly to drive in the tying run in the top of the ninth and hit a double to drive in Bobby Calderon with the winning run in the 11th for Chapman (28-2), which won its 11th consecutive game.

Jeff Blitstein improved to 10-0, giving up eight hits and two earned runs in 10 innings with four walks and five strikeouts for Chapman, ranked fourth in the nation.

In the Golden State Athletic Conference:

Concordia 5-7, Cal Baptist 4-6--Derek Patterson’s two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth lifted the host Eagles (22-19-1, 14-12) in the first game.

In the second game, Carlos Olmos hit a two-run triple to highlight a three-run sixth and help the Eagles erase a 6-4 deficit.

Point Loma Nazarene 12-8, Southern California Christian 5-7--Kevin Candelaria hit two home runs in the doubleheader for visiting SCC (18-23, 9-16).

In Big West Conference softball:

CS Fullerton 5-6, UC Santa Barbara 3-5--Monica Lucatero hit two home runs, drove in four runs in the first game and three runs in the second for the host Titans (27-17, 7-4).

After Lucatero’s fifth-inning three-run home run helped the Titans pull within one run, Dara Marzolo’s two-run single in the sixth drove in Stacy Pierson and Yasmin Mossadeghi.

In nonconference softball:

Southern California College 7-3, Colorado College 0-2--Alysia Atchley (7-0) struck out six in a four-hitter and had two hits and two runs scored for host SCC (34-10) in the first game.