Area roundup: Long Beach State Dirtbags take series at Fullerton: water polo team upsets Davis

Long Beach State’s baseball team bounced back from Friday’s loss with a 5-4 victory at Cal State Fullerton in Saturday’s rubber match.

The No. 20 Dirtbags (16-7) tallied four runs through four iings and leaned on the bullpen for six iings of work as Joshua Advocate (3-0) picked up the win in relief to guide Long Beach to its sixth series win in six attempts on the season and its first at Fullerton (12-11) since 2007.

LBSU scored in the top of the first on an RBI single from Tristan Mercadel that brought home Garrett Hampson after a leadoff double.

From there, the Titans took a 3-1 lead before Luke Rasmussen and Zack Rivera tied it up with RBI singles in the third. An iing later, Hampson notched an RBI single to put the Dirtbags ahead, and they scored again in the seventh with an RBI by Joey Sanchez.

The Dirtbags are back in action Tuesday at 6:05 p.m. at Fresno State. Big West play begins Friday when Long Beach hosts UC Santa Barbara at Blair Field.

NCAA women’s water polo

LONG BEACH STATE 8, UC DAVIS 4 >> Behind four first-quarter goals, the No. 21 49ers (12-7, 1-0) opened Big West Conference play with an upset of the fifth-ranked Aggies (14-9, 0-1), extending their wiing streak to six.

Senior Alexis Butler delivered nine saves and sophomore Emily Garczynski scored two goals for the Beach. UCD junior Bryn Lutz scored the first goal for the Aggies with just five seconds remaining in the opening frame, but LBSU still led 4-1. LBSU retus to the pool this afteoon for a 2 p.m. tilt at No. 8 Califoia.

Softball

ST. ANTHONY >> The Saints (5-5) split a par of games at the Whittier Touament with a 2-1 victory over Norwalk and a 10-0 loss against Lompoc Cabrillo.

Senior Alexis Honeycutt was a combined 4-for-6 at the plate for St. Anthony, which will face Oxford Academy on Thursday.