Five-Run First Helps Orange Even Series
11/10/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Nov. 10, 2010
MALIBU, Calif. - A leadoff walk followed by four hits, a two-base wild pitch and a throwing error equaled five runs for the Orange team, which earned a 5-2 victory Wednesday at Eddy D. Field Stadium to even Pepperdine's fall intrasquad series at one game each.
Games four and five take place Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m., and if the series is still tied after the final game then the international tiebreaker rule will be implemented to decide the victor of last weekend's 5-5 deadlock.
Orange, which let leads slip away in the first two games, struck early in Wednesday's contest off Blue starter and sophomore Alex Najera (Anaheim Hills, Calif./Canyon HS).
With no outs and the bases loaded, sophomore Sam Meyer (Los Altos, Calif./St. Francis HS) drove in the game's first run on a single to shallow right field that plated both Joe Sever (San Jose, Calif./Bellarmine College Preparatory) and senior Harrison Kain (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Thousand Oaks HS/Moorpark College). Sever trotted in easily from third, but Kain lucked out after the ball bounced away from backstop Nate Johnson (Camarillo, Calif./Camarillo HS).
Following a second RBI single that made it a 3-0 game, the ball again eluded Johnson on Najera's wild pitch that brought home Meyer and allowed sophomore Zach Turner (San Carlos, Calif./Junipero Serra HS/Cañada College) to advance from first to third.
Turner then scored Orange's fifth and final run on junior David DiPaola's (San Carlos, Calif./Junipero Serra HS/Cañada College) shot back up the middle.
Najera settled down to retire the next five batters he faced, including two by strikeout, and didn't allow another base runner past second over the next four innings of work. Freshman Cody Dickerson (Cypress, Texas/Cypress Woods HS) followed Najera to the mound with two scoreless innings of relief, striking out one and picking Kain off at first base.
Orange didn't need to go to its bullpen as freshman Matt Maurer (Medford, Ore./North Medford HS) delivered 6.2 innings of one-hit ball before losing a little bit of steam in the seventh. Down to his team's last out, Johnson coaxed a five-pitch walk out of Maurer, which led to consecutive run-scoring hits from junior Brian Humphries (El Cajon, Calif./Granite Hills HS) and freshman Bryan Langlois (Oak Park, Calif./Oak Park HS).
Maurer finished the game with 81 pitches and allowed just two base runners through the first six innings - one on a hit by pitch and the other on Cody Yount's (Paradise Valley, Calif./Chaparral HS) single. At one point between the third and seventh frames, Maurer retired 13 consecutive Blue batters.
