After hovering near .500 for several games Pepperdine baseball surged on both the weekend and on Tuesday emerging with a 13-11 record. This is the best position the Waves have been in since the beginning of the season when they went 3-0 in their first series against Eastern Kentucky. Following the opening weekend the record took a turn for the worse ending up at 6-10 on March 15. However the Waves have won seven of their last eight games and the season is looking positive going into this weekend’s series against the Cougars of Brigham Young University.
This past weekend March 25 to 27 the Flyers of University of Dayton Ohio were in town for a three -ame series. The three games proved important to both teams both at critical points in the season with their records standing near .500.
The Waves went into Friday’s game tentatively but eventually broke open a huge lead leaving Eddy D. Field Stadium with a 9-1 win.
Through the first four innings sophomore pitcher Jon Moscot held Dayton to only one run on three hits also recording four strikeouts. The Waves were held to two runs through the fourth by Dayton pitching but began making big offensive plays to take the large lead.
An extremely exciting play came in the Waves’ double steal in the sixth inning (two of six stolen bases by the Waves in the game). Juniors Brian Humphries and Ryan Van Amburg stole third and second respectively. Humphries reached home on the next play thanks to a long fly ball by senior Torrey Jacoby making the score 4-1.
A four-run eighth inning sealed the win for the Waves. Leading the game offensively was senior Harrison Kain who had three hits and one RBI in four at-bats coupled with three runs of his own and two stolen bases in a row.
Saturday’s game was the only sore spot for the Waves in the last few weeks. Until the ninth inning pitching had dominated — both the Waves and Flyers had only scored one run. Freshman southpaw Matt Maurer threw a solid six innings allowing only one run through the 20 at-bats he pitched. Dayton starter Burny Mitchum had a similar start also allowing one run in his seven innings of work. The Flyers earned the win off two runs in the eighth inning evening the series with their 3-1 win.
The final game of the Dayton series proved to be the most exciting. The Waves executed a thrilling comeback victory in a high-scoring game (14 runs between the two teams). With the score at 5-3 the game appeared to be winding down in the sixth inning. However the Waves rallied for four runs in that inning to take the lead. After scoring two Pepperdine was in a critical situation — two outs and a tied game. Miles Silverstein came up and quickly hit a hard drive to center field. He later told Pepperdinesports.com that he “saw their left fielder dive for it thinking he might have made the catch … but the ball popped up.” The double coming with two outs scored the two runs that gave Pepperdine the 7-5 lead and eventually 8-6 win.
Tuesday’s away game against Cal Poly came one week later against the same matchup here in Malibu. The Waves trailed early on 3-1 in the fourth inning but put up enough runs to force extra innings. Tuesday was Pepperdine’s fourth game this year that went into extra frames.
The big play of the game came in the 11th. It was a classic moment in exciting baseball: The score lay deadlocked at 4-4 with the bases loaded and two outs. Brian Humphries who leads the Waves in batting average (.305) made contact on a 2-2 pitch and sent the ball sailing into right field for a triple. With the three resulting runs the Waves took the 7-4 lead and held strong in the bottom of the 11th to win the game.
Despite losing post-season opportunities the team (13-11) is looking up and forward as they ready themselves for a three-game series this weekend against BYU at home. Be sure to check out Pepperdine baseball in action at 3 p.m. on Thursday and Friday as well as 1 p.m. on Saturday.