Waves Set to Travel to WCC Championships
5/21/2018 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
MALIBU, Calif. -The West Coast Conference regular season champion Pepperdine baseball team heads to Stockton, Calif. for the WCC Championships beginning Thursday. Teams competing in seed order are Pepperdine, Gonzaga, LMU and San Francisco.
Pepperdine enters the tournament with a 29-22 overall record and a 17-10 WCC record, the best in the conference. Thanks to a win by Santa Clara over Gonzaga on the final day of the regular season, the Waves were able to clinch the #1 seed despite their loss to Portland on Sunday.
WCC TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
Thursday, May 24
3:00 pm          Game 1: No. 1 Pepperdine vs No. 4 San Francisco
7:00 pm          Game 2: No. 2 Gonzaga vs. No. 3 LMU
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Friday, May 25
2:00 pm          Game 3: Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2
3:30 pm          Game 4: Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2Â
7:30 pm          Game 5: Loser Game 4 vs. Winner Game 3
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Saturday, May 26
3:00 pm          Game 6: Winner Game 4 vs. Winner Game 5
7:00 pm          Game 7: If Necessary
COVERAGE
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LIVE STATS: PepperdineWaves.com
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LAST TIME OUT
The Waves played their final WCC series against Portland. Needing either two wins or one win and some help to take the outright regular season championship, the Waves relied on the help of Gonzaga, who lost to Santa Clara on Sunday to take the title. Pepperdine fell in game one to Portland in extra innings despite some masterful pitching from Cooper Chandler and Kiko Garcia. The team won the second game 6-2 before falling 4-0 in the regular season finale on Sunday.
WCC TOURNAMENT HISTORY
Pepperdine has won seven WCC postseason events: five via the two-team Championship Series (1984, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006) and two in the current four-team WCC Tournament (2014, 2015. The last time Pepperdine made the tournament was in 2016, when two straight extra-innings losses ended the Waves' season.
CHANDLER, PENDERGAST STEPPING UP IN WAVES ROTATION
The Waves suffered a key injury to its rotation when ace Wil Jensen and his sterling 5-0 record and 0.74 ERA was lost for the season, but freshman Cooper Chandler and junior Jonathan Pendergast have stepped up. Pendergast is 6-0 in his last six starts with a 1.75 ERA. He has 31 strikeouts in 46.1 innings, and has gone at least seven innings in each, including a two-hit shutout against San Diego on April 21. Chandler has been almost as good, going 4-1 in his last six starts with a 2.75 ERA. He has 20 strikeouts in 36.0 innings during the stretch.
KANFER IS CRUISING
Pepperdine junior outfielder Matthew Kanfer has crushed WCC hitting this year, amassing a .333 batting average during conference play. He has 36 hits, five doubles, 23 RBI and three home runs in the stretch as well.
HOME SWEET HOME
Eddy D. Field Stadium has been a solid home-field advantage for Pepperdine as the Waves are 949-404-13 all-time at its Malibu location.
POSTSEASON HISTORY: The Waves made their 30th appearance in NCAA postseason play in 2015, advancing to the NCAA Fullerton Regional final. In 2014 Pepperdine made its first ever NCAA Super Regional after winning the San Luis Obispo Regional Tournament. The Waves eventually fell to TCU, two games to one in the best-of-three series. Pepperdine won a College World Series title in 1992.
ABOUT PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY: Pepperdine boasts a one-of-a-kind athletic department with unprecedented success for a school of its size. The Waves have won NCAA Division I championships in five different men's sports - one of just 18 schools to have accomplished this feat - and nine overall. Of this elite group, Pepperdine has the smallest undergraduate enrollment and is the only school not affiliated with a BCS-level conference. The Waves have earned the Division I-AAA All-Sports Trophy, an award based on postseason success that's given to the top non-football school, three times (most recently in 2011-12). Located in scenic Malibu, Calif., the university overlooks the Pacific Ocean and its campus and athletic facilities are regularly voted among the nation's most beautiful. Pepperdine, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, ranks #46 overall on U.S. News and World Report's list of America's best colleges.
