THURSDAY'S SCORES
UC Riverside 6, Belmont 5
UC Riverside 3, Belmont 2
UC RIVERSIDE 6, BELMONT 5; UC RIVERSIDE 3, BELMONT 2
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Belmont (5-9) was edged, 3-2, 6-5, in a pair of contests Thursday afternoon with UC Riverside (11-9) on the Bruins first day of action of its California road swing.
Game 1: UC Riverside 3, Belmont 2
Belmont was edged in the first contest of the day as the Bruins dropped a hard fought, 3-2, decision to the hands of the Highlanders.
UCR jumped out to the early lead off a 2 RBI double to left center field by Haley Harris in the bottom of the third inning
Belmont responded in the top of the sixth as a pair of RBI hits from Chelsey Deloney (Gardendale, Ala.) and Amy Zeronian (Pasadena, Calif.) tied up the score, 2-2.
Harris had another answer for the Highlanders as the freshman drove in the winning run for UCR in the bottom of the seventh inning on an RBI fly ball to right field as the Highlanders edged the Bruins, 3-2.
BU's Ashley Hammer (Mt. Juliet, Tenn.) led Belmont offensively as the senior went 3-for-4 for the Bruins.
Game 2: UC Riverside 6, Belmont 5
The Highlanders scored the final six runs of the game in order to once again edge Belmont in order to sweep the doubleheader.
The Bruins jumped out to the 5-0 advantage thanks to a big-time fourth inning as Belmont used three hits to score five runs.
UCR clawed back in the home half of the fourth as the Highlanders countered with three runs of their own to draw within 2, 5-3.
Riverside completed its comeback in the sixth inning as UCR's Marissa Escalante hit a 2 RBI single up the middle to tie up the game. and an RBI single down the right field line from Riverside's Karina Romero ended up being the go-ahead score as UC Riverside edged Belmont, 6-5, in order to complete the sweep of the Bruins on the afternoon.
Belmont was led offensively by Mia Vierra (Palmdale, Calif) as the Californian went 2-for-3 on the contest in her return to her home state.
The Bruins will return to action tomorrow as Belmont plays its first game of the four-day LMU Invitational against Saint Mary's (Calif.) at 5 p.m. (CST). Live stats will be available for the contest between the Bruins and the Gaels.