By Steve Pinkerton
Staff Writer
The Waves surge into a tough week of baseball against heavyweights Long Beach State and the University of San Diego, fueled by three strong victories over Santa Clara last weekend. The wins catapulted Pepperdine into first place in the West Coast Conference. However, the Waves fell hard on Wednesday, losing to Long Beach 16-1.
In Wednesday’s game against the Long Beach State Dirtbags, the Waves suffered early and often as the Beach pounded out 21 hits in the rout.
The Waves were limited to only four hits as four Long Beach pitchers and an errorless Dirtbag defense shutdown the recently productive Pepperdine offense.
The gamehad few bright spots for the Waves as they were down 7-0 after three innings and were not able to muster a run until the bottom of the eighth when senior second baseman Simon Ferrer hit his second homerun of the season, a solo shot, for the Waves only run.
The big hurt came in the top of the ninth inning when Long Beach State junior center fielder Jeremy Reed hit a grand slam off Pepperdine reliever Michael Hurd. This opened the floodgates as the Dirtbags poured in an additional three runs to extend the lead to 15 runs.
The 21 hits surrendered by the Pepperdine pitching staff is only one shy of the school record 22 which they gave up earlier in the season when they defeated then No. 3 Tulane 30-21.
Freshman Kea Kometani took the loss for the Waves after being pulled after the third inning for junior James Carroll. Kometani gave up seven runs on 10 hits with one strikeout and two walks.
Despite the tough loss, the earlier victories over Santa Clara couldn’t have come at a better time. Following a win last Sunday over St. Mary’s, the sweep gave Pepperdine a four-game winning streak and turned around what once seemed to be a hopeless season.
To stretch that streak to five games, the Waves must tackle 18-9 Long Beach State at Eddy D. Field on Wednesday — not an easy task.
The 49ers stand undefeated at 6-0 in their conference and so far have lived up to the No. 14 national ranking bestowed upon them by Baseball America magazine.
“We’re ready to go after Long Beach State,” said junior pitcher Greg Ramirez, who two weeks ago described Pepperdine’s condition as a “funk.”
Senior Kevin Beavers agreed that his team is prepared to compete with the 49ers. “We’ve really come together as a team, and we’ve improved a lot,” said Beavers.
The Waves’ success over conference rival Santa Clara last weekend is ample testimony to their improvement.
Thursday’s game produced a fresh face among the starting rotation in the form of sophomore Jacob Barrack, who made a successful transition from reliever to starting pitcher.
Allowing just three runs in six innings, Barrack improved his season record to 4-1.
“The great thing about all our games last weekend is that they were team wins,” Barrack said. “All the players worked together to achieve our success.”
The Waves initially faced stern resistance on Thursday afternoon from Broncos pitcher Matt Travis, who struck out 13 of the first 14 batters he faced. But in the bottom of the fifth, Travis walked Pepperdine freshman Patrick Rooney and then served up a home run to Simon Ferrer that tied the game at 2-2.
That same inning, Waves’ junior Duke Sardhina hit a single that scored sophomore Brent Haapanen and gave Pepperdine the lead.
The Broncos countered with a run in the top of the sixth. The Waves promptly responded with a run in the bottom of that same inning.
Sophomore Chris Kelly tacked on a couple extra runs for Pepperdine in the seventh inning, nailing a home run off Santa Clara reliever Jared Anderson that brought Kelly’s team-leading home run tally to eight.
Kelly chalked up a ninth homer the following day, this time to give Pepperdine an 8-7 victory over Santa Clara in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The Waves’ overall offense was strong on Friday, with its top four hitters going 12-for-20 and scoring a combined seven runs.
Kelly, Sardhina, sophomore Cory Brightwell and junior Ty Harper each racked up three hits, while senior catcher Rock Mills and junior Ed Montague each grabbed two.
But the Waves reserved their most riveting performance for last. In the bottom of the 10th on Sunday afternoon, with one out and the score tied at 3-3, junior Waves centerfielder Jason Payne stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and let the count get away from him. With the count at 0-2, the game’s outcome hinged on whatever happened next.
Payne smacked the next pitch up the middle, allowing Sardhina to run in from third and score the game-winning run.
Ramirez pitched the last two innings and retired the final six Santa Clara hitters in succession, earning his second win in as many days. “We’ve still got a ways to go,” Ramirez said. “We need to give 110 percent and take it one game at a time.”
While that percentage of output may not be mathematically attainable, the Waves will need to summon all their resources to compete with Long Beach State.
Then Pepperdine must face formidable conference rival University of San Diego this weekend. With a 25-8 overall record and a No. 25 national ranking from Baseball America, the Toreros present a substantial hurdle for Pepperdine.
Two weeks ago, Pepperdine had an 11-16 record and had gone one-for-three in its conference.
If the Waves can achieve success against San Diego, they will have come a long way indeed from this season’s dismal beginnings.
With the Waves’ overall season record nearing the .500 mark at 15-17, and with a winning conference record at 5-2, things are looking up for Pepperdine baseball.
April 04, 2002