GARRETT WAIT
Sports Editor
If the Pepperdine baseball team members had anything wrong with them after the first game of the weekend series against Dartmouth University, the coaching staff made sure it didn’t come back for the two final games of the series.
The Waves came out cold in the game, losing to the Big Green 3-2 in 11 innings despite a stellar 10-inning pitching performance by senior left-hander Paul Coleman. Senior infielder Nick Kliebert said the team showed a lack of intensity in the loss.
“We just came out flat,” Kliebert said. “We expected to handle them easy. It doesn’t matter how good you are, you have to come and execute and we didn’t.”
Head Coach Steve Rodriguez echoed Kliebert, saying lack of intensity has been a problem for the Waves for much of the season.
“I just think there was little lack of respect for Dartmouth and their abilities,” Rodriguez said. “I think we expected to come in and walk all over them and that didn’t happen. I just think it’s been like that all season. They’re slowly starting to take a turn for the better and bring the intensity for every game and every opponent.”
After opening the three-game set with Dartmouth with a loss in, Rodriguez sat down with his team to discuss outing forth more effort.
“We did have a little talk,” Rodriguez said. “We did do a few things to try to help them not do this any more. I’m not a player any more, but hopefully it’ll help them get out of it. As a coaching staff, we try to do certain things to help the team play better.”
Apparently whatever the coaches said in the team meeting worked as the Waves came out Saturday and pounced the Big Green with a four-run third inning that sparked a 6-2 victory. Junior center fielder Luke Salas hit a two-run triple and junior catcher Chad Tracy hit a two-run home run in the inning.
Kliebert said keeping the ball on the ground helped spark the offense for the Waves.
“On our field if you get the ball in the air, you’re usually out,” Kliebert said. “We made a conscious effort to keep the ball on the ground because they had a very suspect defense. We wanted to make them make the plays.”
Saturday starter Adam Olbrychowski pitched 1.1 innings before coming out of the game with an arm injury. Sophomore Jason Dominguez came in for a long relief effort and allowed two runs in 4.2 innings of work.
Rodriguez said he’s confident Olbrychowski will get healthy but wanted to take every precaution with the young pitcher.
“I think he’ll be fine, I can’t say too much about it,” Rodriguez said. “He just felt some discomfort. I think we did the appropriate thing to take him out and not allow him to hurt himself even more.”
In the final game of the series Sunday, Pepperdine’s offense exploded for nine runs on 16 hits and senior right-hander James Johnson allowed six hits and one earned run in six innings in the Waves’ 9-2 victory. Tracy hit his second home run in as many games and Kliebert went 3-for-4 with three runs scored.
Kliebert said that, despite elevating the ball during the game, the Waves managed to get plenty of hits.
“We kept the ball in the air all game,” Kliebert said. “We did hit some homeruns, but we were hitting balls right at them for most of the game. We were able to break through and got some to fall, though.”
On Tuesday, Pepperdine matched up against Cal State University, Fullerton who came into the game ranked fourth in the nation. The Waves, who won 7-4, got an outstanding performance out of Tracy, who hit two homeruns, giving him four in the past three games he played.
Tracy had three hits and four RBI in the game as Pepperdine took advantage of four Titans errors in the game. Kliebert said Tracy’s recent hot streak has been evident in every at-bat the junior All-American has taken.
“He’s been on every pitch in every at-bat of late,” Kliebert said. “It’s easy to tell he’s on. Nothing is fooling him, nothing is surprising him. He hit two homeruns on good pitches to opposite field (Tuesday).”
Sophomore starter Barry Enright walked two, struck out four and allowed four runs on eight hits in 6.1 innings. Freshman closer Brett Hunter came in to relieve Enright and shut down the Titans for 2.2 innings, earning his fifth save of the season.
Kliebert said Hunter has been a big part of the bullpen’s resurgence of late this season.
“They’ve definitely picked up their game,” Kliebert said. “They were kind of struggling early on but the last three or four weeks they’ve come on strong. We’ve had James Johnson come in and pitch well in spot starts and Brett Hunter’s been great. He had a couple rough spots of late but other than that he’s been lights out.”
Rodriguez said the game was a battle of attrition with neither team playing as well as they should have.
“I think it’s a real good win for our guys,” Rodriguez said. “We didn’t play all that well and truthfully, they didn’t either. Luckily we came out on top.”
The game marked the return of sophomore center fielder Adrian Ortiz who has been out for a month after injuring his wrist while playing in a game against Long Beach State on Feb. 14. Ortiz played two innings in center field and had a bunt single in his only at-bat. Rodriguez said Ortiz’s return could help ignite this team on both sides of the ball.
“Adrian has the ability to allow our pitcher a little bit more freedom to make a mistake because he’s going to run it down in center,” Rodriguez said. “He creates more havoc on the basepaths and his ability to get on base will help. He can provide a spark on both offense and defense.”
The Waves, at 15-11 on the season after winning three of the four games they played this week will begin a three-game series against Northwestern University on Friday at 2 p.m. at Eddy D. Field Stadium.
Rodriguez said the team needs to bring the same intensity they brought for the final three games when they start the series against the Wildcats.
“Friday’s another game that hopefully our guys aren’t going to overlook again,” Rodriguez said. “They have some players who can do some damage. We need to take care of business. Hopefully our success against Fullerton carries over to this weekend.”
03-23-2006