Reports From LBSU

Long Beach State’s Andrew Gagnon offered another outstanding top of the rotation start, throwing eight scoreless innings and striking out six and left with a 1-0 lead, but a two-out rally by Pacific in the ninth inning led to a 2-1 loss Thursday night.

Long Beach State turned a pair of double plays to erase threats in the first two innings, and that success buoyed Andrew Gagnon past Pacific’s Marcus Pointer in a great pitcher’s duel in the first game of three to start Big West play for both teams.

Pointer also pitched eight innings, and got out of a late jam in the eighth with a double play of his own, retiring Steve Tinoco after the Tigers intentionally walked Joey Terdoslavich to load the bases.

Tinoco had a big hit earlier in the game to give the Dirtbags the lead in the fourth inning. Shortstop Devin Lohman started off the inning with a double, and after being advanced by Terdoslavich, came home on an RBI base hit from Tinoco to score the game’s only run until the ninth inning.

In the ninth however, Long Beach State’s David Brown quickly picked up two outs, but ahead 0-2 to Ben Gorang, the Pacific shortstop picked up a hit, and then with the bases loaded, Matt Christopher singled just outside of the reach of Tinoco to score two runs and give Pacific a lead. 

Jordan Casas singled for Long Beach State in the ninth, but Tiger closer picked up the third out with Casas on second to close out the game. The Dirtbags and Tigers return to Blair Field on Friday for game two of the series beginning at 6:30 p.m.