March 4, 2010

Pepperdine and LSU Box Score (March 4, 2010)

BATON ROUGE, La. - Senior Ryan Heroy hit his first home run of the year and redshirt sophomore Cole Cook struck out a season-high nine batters in Pepperdine's 8-1 loss to No. 2 LSU on a cool Thursday night before 4,886 fans at Alex Box Stadium.

The loss dropped Pepperdine's record to 3-5, while the defending national champion Tigers remain undefeated at 8-0.

Cook (Los Angeles, Calif./Palisades Charter HS) delivered seven innings for the third straight time and his strikeout total was one shy of his career high of 10, which he recorded last April against Gonzaga. He retired seven straight batters at one point before being reached for two runs (one earned) in the fourth inning.

Heroy's (Henderson, Nev./Green Mountain HS) round-tripper was the 17th of his career and tied the game at 1-1 in the second off LSU starter Chris Matulis, who earned the victory despite allowing 10 baserunners on four hits and six walks.

Matulis was removed from the game in favor of Daniel Bradshaw after walking the first two batters of the sixth inning, but the reliever survived a no-out, bases-loaded jam with an infield pop up sandwiched between a pair of strikeouts.

Bradshaw allowed just two additional base runners over the next three innings before giving way to closer Ben Alsup who retired the side in the ninth.

Heroy led all Waves with two hits and freshman Joe Sever (San Jose, Calif./Bellarmine College Preparatory) stole three bases. Sever, who leads the Waves with six steals, reached base via walk and error and swiped both second and third bases in the fifth inning.

Tiger designated hitter Matt Gaudet led the Tiger offense with three RBI and second baseman Tyler Hanover went 3-for-4 with two runs scored.

Pepperdine returns to the diamond at Alex Box Stadium Friday at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. CT for the first of two games against the Brown Bears of the Ivy League. This weekend is the first of Brown's 2010 season.

LSU 8, Pepperdine 1 (Mar 04, 2010 at Baton Rouge, La.)----------------------------------------------------------------------Pepperdine..........     010 000 000  -  1  5  1      (3-5)LSU.................     100 210 04X  -  8  9  1      (8-0)----------------------------------------------------------------------Pitchers: Pepperdine - Cook, Cole; NAJERA, Alex(8); PATRICK, Daniel(8) and Johnson, Nate. LSU -Matulis; Bradshaw (6); Alsup (9) and Gibbs.Win - Matulis (2-0)  Loss - Cook, Cole (0-2)  T-2:42  A-9974HR PEP - Heroy, Ryan (1).Weather: 54 degrees, clear