Yates’ blast helps UCLA baseball beat Florida State, stay alive in tournament

Carson Yates entered the NCAA Tournament with five home runs all season. Suddenly, he’s become a power hitter — and the timing couldn’t have been better for the UCLA baseball team.

Yates’ ninth inning solo shot on Sunday, his third home run in the last three games, propelled UCLA over Florida State 2-1 to keep the Bruins temporarily alive in the Auburn Regional.

UCLA, the No. 2 seed, has little time to rest, though. It will play top-seed Auburn (39-19) at 4 p.m. Sunday in another must-win game, and then must beat the Tigers again in a re-match on Monday. The winner of that game advances to the Super Regionals.

Auburn, the 14th-ranked national seed, has rolled through the regional so far, beating Southeastern Louisiana 19-7 on Friday and Florida State 21-7 on Saturday.

The Bruins survived a pitchers’ duel between UCLA’s Kelly Austin and Florida State’s Jonah Scolaro to stave off elimination, with the score tied 1-1 heading into the ninth.

Florida State’s Jaime Ferrer crushed a breaking ball down in the zone out over the left field wall to put the Seminoles ahead 1-0 in the sixth. Prior to that home run, Austin had held Florida State to 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and five hits.

But Kyle Karros tied the game for UCLA on the first pitch of the seventh inning by Scolaro, just sneaking it past the lower portion of the tall left field wall.

Alonzo Tredwell closed the game for UCLA with two scoreless innings.

Both teams were held scoreless through five innings, as both starters were efficient and effective. Austin allowed one run on six hits, throwing 90 pitches and striking out six. Scolaro struck out nine Bruins on 92 pitches, both career highs. He allowed one run on five hits in 6.1 innings.

UCLA’s first two batters reached in the second inning, but Scolaro got Carson Yates to pop out before striking out Darius Perry and Kenny Oyama.

The Bruins chased Scolaro from the game in the seventh after the Karros home run and put runners on second and third with two outs against the Florida State bullpen, but Cody Schrier grounded out to end the frame. In the eighth, UCLA had runners on first and third with two outs, but Daylen Reyes flied out to center.

UCLA beat Southeastern Louisiana 16-2 on Saturday to advance in the losers’ bracket, while Florida State dropped down after a 21-7 loss to Auburn.