With Reports From LBSU
BOX SCORE
After five home runs last night at the “spacious” Blair Field, no one from the University or media could remember a night game with that many bombs. Usually, a night game at Blair involves a thick marine layer that sits on top of center field.
No layer meant five big flies. The difference was the Trojans had runners on, and the Dirtbags didn’t. USC had two three-run home runs in the third inning on their way to a 10-5 victory.
“Blair Field looked pretty small tonight,” said Dirtbags head coach Mike Weathers.
Joey Terdoslavich and Kellen Hoime had the first two home runs of the season for Long Beach State, but they only meant three of the five runs, and five runs were left on base after Hoime’s fifth inning homer.
The Dirtbags got on the board first in the bottom of the second inning with three straight hits as Steve Tinoco continued to swing the bat well (2-for-4) and led off the inning with a single. TJ Mittlestaedt’s double scored the team’s first run, and Terdoslavich came up to send a high fastball deep into the night for his first home run of the season to give Long Beach State the lead, 3-0.
USC answered with a game clinching top of the third. After a walk and a single to start the inning, Alex Sherrod sent a three-run bomb to right center to tie the game at three. After a double and an error, Ashton Kent rounded out the inning with a three-run shot of his own to take back the lead, 7-3.
Two more unearned runs in the fourth (which included a broken bat single from Matt Foat. Yes, a broken bat!), gave USC a 9-3 lead, but Long Beach had two chances to claw back into the game. In the bottom of the sixth with two on and one out, freshman second baseman Matt Duffy and sophomore shortstop Kirk Singer came up to strike out and ground out. Then in the seventh with two outs and red hot Tinoco at the plate, Devin Lohman was thrown out at third base trying to steal.
Branden Pinder was the victim of the two three-run shots, and he took the loss, while freshman Eddie Magallon came in and threw a solid five innings of relief, giving up four hits and one earned run. Chris Mezger did some relieving of his own, and picked up the win for USC, throwing 4.2 innings of one-run ball.
Long Beach State returns to Blair Field tomorrow as the Dirtbags step out of regular play to take on a Japanese traveling team from Waseda University. The Dirtbags will break out the wood bats and play nine starting at 6:30pm.