Mar. 11, 1997

USC Baseball Loses to Pepperdine

Pepperdine scored two unearned runs in the bottom half of the sixth inning to snap a 2-2 tie, as the Waves defeated visiting USC on Tuesday afternoon at Eddy D. Field Stadium in Malibu.

USC got off to a quick start, scoring a run in the first inning. Leadoff hitter Wes Rachels was hit by a pitch, advanced to second on a wild pitch, moved to third on an infield outand scored on Greg Honoian's infield groundout.

The Waves scored twice in the second inning to take a 2-1 lead. Josh Oder led off the inning with a double and moved to third base on a single by Mark Lopez. Tyler Ferrer's RBI single tied the game at 1-1. Lopez moved to third base on Ferrer's hit, and scored on a safety squeeze by Damon Katz.

The Trojans knotted the game at 2-2 in the top of the sixth inning when Jeremy Frietas connected for a solo blast, his second home run of the season.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Steve Zorn drew a leadoff walk and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. Zorn advanced to third base when an infield grounder by Lopez was misplayed for an error by USC shortstop Marc Mirizzi. Ferrer followed with a slow roller to first base. Zorn scored to give the Waves a 3-2 lead and Ferrer was safe at first thanks to an erro by first baseman Greg Walbridge. Katz was hit by a pitch to load the bases and Mike Kramer drew a bases loaded walk to push Pepperdine lead to 4-2.

USC's Jason Brown led off the ninth inning with a single, but Randy Wolf got the final three outs in his first relief apperance of the season.

USC          100 001 000  -  2  9  4
Pepperdine   020 002 00x  -  4  6  0
Henderson, Weibling (6) and Munson. Ohman, Workman (7), Wolf (9)
and Kramer.  WP - Ohman (1-1). SV - Wolf (1). LP - Henderson
(4-2). HR - Freitas (2).