June 11, 2007

Rugged Holiday UCI's spark
His play and his toughness helped the Anteaters get this far.

BY K.J.M. SINGLETON

WICHITA, Kan.Anyone can take one for the team.

But what Taylor Holiday did during UC Irvine's romp through the Round Rock Regional — especially in the Anteaters' 3-1 victory over host Texas on June 2 — was take one for the program.

Holiday had a hand in each of Irvine's three runs that day (two RBIs, one run), but it was a foot that made the bigger impression in Texas. The Anteaters' first baseman took a cleat to the face and neck on a pickoff attempt during the sixth inning of the game.

The eventual most outstanding

player of the tournament (7 of 16, six runs scored and two stolen bases) would take four stitches en route to a program-defining moment for Irvine — its first regional championship.

"It shocked me more than anything," Holiday said of the incident.

The shocked meet the Shockers today at 9 a.m. when Irvine opens against Wichita State in the best-of-3 super regional at Eck Stadium (ESPN2).

In last weekend's Round Rock Regional, Irvine defeated Texas, a team soaked in tradition and success at their home. The Anteaters will have to do the same against Wichita, a team that might be lacking the same name recognition as the Longhorns but not the results.

Since 1977, when he took over as coach, Gene Stephenson has 24 regional appearances and seven College World Series bids, including a national title in 1989.

"It's a very evenly matched super regional," Irvine coach Dave Serrano said. "It's two teams that mirror each other.
"They have advantage of playing in front of home crowd, but we had that same disadvantage last week and overcame that."

The histories of the two schools are different, but their current make-ups are the same. Neither has advanced to a super regional (the format was adopted in 1999), and both play a similar style of offense — small ball.

Irvine's celebrated offense is keyed by Holiday (Mission Viejo High). Holiday spent two seasons at Arizona State before transferring to Irvine, mainly because of the advice he received from two guys with strong Cal State Fullerton ties: current Titan center fielder Clark Hardman, one of Holiday's best friends since they were 10-year-old little-leaguers, and Serrano, the former Fullerton assistant.

"Clark had nothing but nice things to say about (Serrano). I sat down with (Serrano), and he had a great vision. He thought this was a program that could do some things. With the academics at Irvine and Clark's recommendation, I thought it would be a real good fit," Holiday said.

Like a metal cleat in dirt.

Holiday is hitting .353 and is tops on the team in runs (64), hits (84), doubles (22) and triples (9). And he's third on the team with 41 RBIs, impressive considering he's the team's lead-off hitter.

"Our middle of the order guys — (Cody) Cipriano, (Matt) Morris and (Bryan) Petersen have been run producers at different times for us, but I don't want to take away from Holiday at top of order," Serrano said. "That guy has driven in a lot of runs and scored lot of runs. He's our Energizer. When gets on, scores a lot."

Stephenson knows if he wishes to pull the plug on Irvine, he has to start with Holiday.

"Well more important than him (lead-off man) getting on is not letting him advance," Stephenson said.
"The way our offense executes, when he gets on, we score 80 percent of the time," Irvine assistant Greg Bergeron said.

Scott Gorgen takes the mound (11-2, 2.88 ERA) for Irvine today against Aaron Shafer (8-2, 2.43 ERA). Gorgen threw 10 innings in Round Rock, including a one-run complete game in the 3-1 victory.