By Scott Long
Staff Writer
Despite a 6-0 loss at the hands of Cal State Fullerton on Wednesday night, the Waves began conference play this past weekend on a positive note by winning a three-game series against the Santa Clara Broncos 2-1. After a disappointing 6-12 non-conference start, kicking off WCC play with a winning conference record was critical to the players.
“West Coast Conference play right now is the most important thing to us,” senior third baseman Brent Haapanen said. “It was really good to win a series against one of the top teams in the WCC, and that will give us a big confidence boost when we play at Santa Clara in a few weeks.”
Lately, Pepperdine had been struggling with inconsistent pitching and defensive lapses in the infield. However, all of that changed against Santa Clara, as the Waves held the Broncos to a total of five runs for the entire series.
“We started to pitch really well against Santa Clara, and we were connecting with the bat at the same time,” Haapanen said. “We have been struggling lately to get those two things to come together, and it was nice to finally see it happen.”
Senior pitcher Jacob Barrack began Pepperdine’s outstanding pitching exhibition Saturday by striking out a career-high 13 batters en route to a 7-0 opening series win. The bats were also swinging well for the Waves, as Pepperdine completed its first shutout of an opponent this season. Freshman infielder Justin Sandberg highlighted the offensive explosion for the Waves, hitting his first career home run.
“Our starters pitched really well for us in the series this past weekend,” Haapanen said. “Barrack had a great game, and (senior pitcher) Kea Kometani went deep as well. That allowed us not to have to go too deep in the bullpen so that we could rest our other pitchers.”
The Broncos answered Sunday, however, with tough pitching of its own, and landed a 3-1 victory. Santa Clara pitcher Kellan McConnell had a career-high 10 strikeouts, holding Pepperdine to only four hits, and tied the series at 1-1.
Monday, the Waves got the wood working again with a 9-2 rout of the Broncos in an exciting series-winning victory. Pepperdine was leading 2-1 in the bottom of the third inning when a fly ball to left field by senior first baseman Brent Lewis was dropped by the Broncos, sending a runner home. Junior shortstop Patrick Rooney followed this up with a monster three-run homer over the left field fence in the bottom of the fourth inning with two outs, putting the Waves up 6-1.
From that point on, Pepperdine never looked back. Sophomore David Uribes singled in the bottom of the fifth inning with two outs and the bases loaded, scoring two more runs and putting them up 8-1. Chad Tracy added the final score for the Waves with a home run single in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The only other score for Santa Clara would come in the top of the seventh inning when reliever Brandon Boesch gave up a solo home run, leaving the score at 9-2. Junior Steve Kleen came in to close out the ninth inning, allowing no runs to seal the win for Pepperdine.
Last night the Waves traveled to Orange County to face off against rival Cal State Fullerton in hopes it could avenge its close loss last week to the Titans, 9-8, in extra innings. Unfortunately, as Pepperdine left conference play, their pitching and hitting woes returned in the game against Fullerton.
The Titans, led by the pitching of sophomore Ricky Romero and freshman Nolan Bruyninckx, combined for a four-hitter and struck out 14 Pepperdine batters. That tops the previous record of strikeouts for the Waves this season, surpassing the 11 strikeouts against University of California, Irvine earlier this year.
“We just didn’t come out ready to play against Cal State Fullerton,” Haapanen said. “We now have to look forward to series this weekend against Portland, and focus on improvement there.”
For the first five innings of the game, the contest remained scoreless, with both teams pitching well. However, things turned sour in the bottom of the fifth inning, when Waves junior pitcher Nelson Caraballo allowed the Titans to load the bases with no outs. Senior pitcher Brandon Boesch relieved Caraballo, allowing two runs on a walk and infield out.
“Our starting pitchers put us in position to be in a close game late in the contest,” Haapanen said. “But the hits just weren’t falling for us the entire game, and Cal State Fullerton was finally able to put together a run near the end.”
Fullerton rounded off its shutout of the Waves with a run in the seventh inning, and three runs in the eighth. After Wednesday’s loss, Pepperdine moves down to an 8-14 overall record for the season. The team hopes to improve matters as it resumes conference play this weekend in a three-game series at Portland.
Submitted March 25, 2004