Sunday fun-day, Sunday sweep-day. Yeah, that’s a fragment sentence, but it says it all for the Dirtbags.

Blair Field was the place to be this weekend, and if there was anywhere better to spend a Sunday afternoon, please let this writer know. A picturesque day, good-looking crowd and some pretty darn good baseball are what get us through that reality check called Monday.

However, UC Davis might be thinking about the Dirtbags well into the week, especially junior outfielder TJ Mittelstaedt.

With deuces across the board in the seventh Mittelstaedt drove a Scott Lyman fastball deep to right to score sophomore Kellen Hoime and freshman Brennan Metzger for the go-ahead runs in the Dirtbags’ 3-2 win. Hoime and Metzger did their part for the team, each one was hit-by-a-pitch twice in the game.

Long Beach State (23-20, 10-5) was outhit seven to five by the Aggies (7-35, 1-14) and had some trouble stringing hits against Lyman, who was effectively wild in his first career start. But, the Dirtbags grinded out the win to complete their second consecutive weekend sweep and eight of nine against Big West rivals Northridge, Pacific and the Aggies.

“We were going for 8-1, 7-2 (record wise)” coach Mike Weathers said of the past three weekend series. “You figure you’re going to have a stumble somewhere and we did, but then after the Northridge stumble we swept two weekends in a row. I don’t care who you’re playing, it’s hard to do.”

The Dirtbags scored first in all three games this weekend—freshman Derek Legg’s double in the fourth scored Mittelstaedt to break the scoreless tie on Sunday. Mittelstaedt got on via the walk and then perfectly executed the delayed steal which caught UC Davis off guard; weird, considering the Dirtbags swiped 14 bags in the series.

Legg and Mittelstaedt each had nice plays out on the field. Legg stole a hit from leftfielder Ty Kelly by diving full extension in the first-base side hole and picking a line drive short-hop and throwing from his knees to junior Steve Tinoco at first for the out. Mittelstaedt showed off his arm doubling off UC Davis’ Eric Johnson at first on a shallow fly to right. But the talk of the weekend was his stick as he finished the weekend going 5-for-11 with seven RBIs, four runs scored, two walks and one home run.

“He’s done a good job for us,” said Weathers. “For a guy that didn’t have any power or much RBIs his first couple of years he’s been a big key in the middle of the lineup…He’s hitting with power, he’s driving the ball to the fence here at Blair and that’s not easy to do. His bat speed has picked up. He’s a strong little guy.”

But it might have to do with more than a quick stroke and his mental approach for each at bat, this is what he had to say about his game changing at bat: “I knew he was going to throw a fastball. He already had a couple wild pitches and he didn’t want to put the go ahead run into scoring position so I was sitting on a fastball and got it.”

Freshman Andrew Gagnon was the man on the hill for the Beach going five-plus innings giving up two runs on six hits. The Aggies put up their two runs in the sixth with an RBI single from Scott Heylman off Gagnon and a Ryan Scoma single off Dirtbag lefty reliever David Born scored Heylman to give the Aggies their first and only lead of the series.

Freshman Josh Corrales followed Born out of the bullpen and was nasty going two innings without surrendering a hit before turning the ball over to senior closer Charlie Ruiz who collected his 11^th save of the season with a perfect eight-pitch ninth inning.

The Long Beach State bullpen was untouchable all weekend combining for 8 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out 10 Aggies and scattering five hits.

Now the Dirtbags must turn their attention to the critical weekday games against Pepperdine on Cinco de Mayo at home and at UCLA (May 12^th). Not to mention their important Big West weekends. The Dirtbags will travel up to Santa Barbara to face the Gauchos (May 8-10) and then welcome nationally ranked Cal Poly to Blair (May 15-17) before finishing up with their annual wrap-up series against Cal State Fullerton at Fullerton May 22-24.

“We know we basically have to win every game left to get in the playoffs,” Mittelstaedt said. “So we’re coming together and really making sure that we stick to our goals: winning every series, and got to get sweeps out of there.”