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sports:
baseball
Dirtbags rotate
seven pitchers, topple USD
By Ben Dimapindan
On-line Forty-Niner
While the pitching
and defense of the Long Beach State baseball team suffocated
the University of San Diego offense, the Dirtbag batters exploded
at the plate, dominating the game from start to finish, 8-2,
in front of 543 fans at Blair Field Tuesday night.
The LBSU pitching,
from starter Al Thielemann to relievers Joey Pace, Russel
Rohlicek, Chris Demaria, Bo Ashabraner, Jeff Cruz and Josh
Alliston, eliminated any offensive threat from USD batters.
All seven pitchers combined to pin down the Toreros to mere
two runs on only three hits while tallying a total of seven
strikeouts. In fact, the Toreros (33-20) committed three errors,
which outnumbered their total runs scored.
"Our pitchers,
all of them, did a great job," pinch hitter/ third baseman
Edgar Varela said. "They kept the ball down, made them
[the USD batters] try to get some hits, and they just couldn't
do it. We played good defense."
At their offense
sides, the Dirtbags (31-18, 7-5) pounded away at the opposing
pitchers and defense.
The LBSU leadoff
batter, designated hitter Nick Covarrubias, blasted the ball
to the center field wall for a triple and was driven in on
a sacrifice fly ball by first baseman Jeremy Reed.
In the bottom of
the second, after third baseman Todd Jennings and second baseman
Kaulana Kahaulua each hit a single, Covarrubias stepped up
to the plate and hammered a two-run double. As the ball sailed
to left center, the USD left fielder Joey Prast dove for it
but could not make the catch. Later in that inning, Reed connected
again with another sacrifice fly ball to bat in Covarrubias
and gave the Dirtbags a 4-0 advantage.
"It felt good,"
Covarrubias said. "I was comfortable from the beginning.
I saw the ball well, and my confidence has been up, especially
because this last weekend I played really well. It felt great."
The Dirtbags put
the nail in the Toreros' coffin with another three-run surge
in the sixth. After a fielding error landed right fielder
Paul Macaluso on the second base, Varela re-ignited the offense
with a base hit that popped up high and dropped in shallow
center field. Then center fielder Corry Parrott slammed an
RBI double to right field, just inside of the first baseline.
After Varela scored on a passed ball, Kahaulua capped off
the inning with a sacrifice bunt that drove in Parrott.
"I swung at
a ball up, and it just hit off the end of the bat," Varela
said. "It just happened to fall in. Earlier, before that,
we had guys hitting the ball hard all over the place, and
I just came in for Todd [Jennings] with the opportunity to
hit."
The 8-2 victory
gives the Dirtbags the momentum of a two-game win streak to
ride into this weekend's three-game Big West Conference series
at home against Cal Poly.
"As a team
right now, we're playing really well," Covarrubias said.
"Everything has just been going well for us these last
couple of games, and we've just got to keep it up."
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