Reports From LBSU Club Baseball & President Chris Wolf

The No.12 Long Beach State Club Baseball played a huge three game series against University of Southern California this past weekend.  Being the last series of the season, both teams entered the series with only one loss with the winner of the series being crowned Southern Pacific South Conference Champions, earning a spot in the playoffs in Henderson, Nevada early next month.

In Game One, the 49ers jumped out to an early lead with a score of 2-0 with RBI off the bats of Dustin Gramenz and Paul McDonald.  Tucker Troy shut down the Trojans while pitching a complete game giving up only 2 ER as the 49ers won 5-2.

In Game Two, the 49ers scored a run in the first inning with a RBI from Devin Danley, only to give up the lead in the next inning and go down 2-1.  Dustin Gramenz clutched up in the next inning though with his 3rd homerun of the season putting the 49ers back on top 3-2.  The next three innings though 49er pitching struggled resulting in 4 more runs for the Trojans victory, 6-3, and the series quickly became tied 1-1.

In the deciding Game Three, the 49ers batters were shut down in the first two innings in order and the Trojans jumped out to an early lead with five hits in the third inning with the score 3-0.  In the bottom half of the inning the Trojan starting pitcher struggled, walking four and hitting two 49er batters resulting in two runs and a pitching change.  The next 49er batter, Chris Wolf, clutched up and hit a grand slam for the first 49er hit and put them up 6-3.  That was all 49er pitcher Chris Padgett needed to pick up the win and shut down the Trojans throughout the next four innings.  Ryan Freydig came in to close the game in the 8th inning with the score 8-6 and did his job picking up the save striking out five batters in his two innings of work while giving up 0 ER and helping the 49ers clinch the Southern Pacific South Conference of the National Club Baseball Association with an 8-6 victory.

Long Beach State Club Baseball will enter postseason play May 7-9 in Henderson, Nevada in a four team double elimination tournament.  Winner earns a spot in the World Series in Florida May 28th-June 3rd.

Here are the latest National Club Baseball Association National Top 20 rankings, where LBSU is the top California team…

1 Colorado State University

2 East Carolina University

3 University of Arizona

4 Clemson University

5 University of Illinois

6 Weber State University

7 Penn State University

8 University of Florida

9 Texas A&M University

10 James Madison University

11 Sam Houston State University

12 Long Beach State University

13 Florida State University

14 NC State University

15 University of Maryland

16 University of Kansas

17 Western Washington University

18 Illinois State University

19 UC – Santa Barbara

20 University of Pittsburgh