March 27, 2009
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - The University of San Diego baseball team held off a late Pepperdine University Rally to claim a 8-6 win in the West Coast Conference opener for both teams Friday afternoon at USD's Cunningham Stadium.
With the win, the Toreros improve to 17-10 overall, move to 1-0 in the WCC and have won three-straight games. With the loss, the 12th-ranked Waves fall to 16-9 overall and 0-1 in the WCC.
San Diego wasted no time in scoring as in the second inning they put up four runs on four hits. James Meador led off the inning by turning in the first pitch he saw and sent it over the left field fence for his first home run of the day. Victor Sanchez then drew a walk and Steven Chatwood moved Sanchez to second on a single to center field. After Strazzara moved each batter up a base on a sacrifice bunt, Bryan Haar drove in Sanchez with a RBI single to left field. Nick McCoy drove in Chatwood with a RBI single through the left side. Both McCoy and Haar moved up one base on a wild pitch, Nicol then drove in the final run on a sacrifice fly to right field to give USD a 4-0 lead.
USD then added one run in the third inning on Meador's second home run of the day, again on a first offering from Pepperdine starter Nate Newman to give USD a 5-0 lead.
The Toreros then took an 8-0 lead with three runs in the fourth inning on a Haar two-run homer and a Zach Walters RBI single.
The Waves then began their comeback in the top of the sixth inning as they took advantage of a pair of USD fielding errors to score two runs.
Pepperdine then scored four runs in the top of the seventh inning to make the game interesting. The Pepperdine runs came on a USD throwing error, a Brian Humphries RBI single, a Denny Duron RBI groundout and a Nate Simon RBI single to cut the lead to 8-6.
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But that is as close as they could come as AJ Griffin shut down the Pepperdine offense, striking out four of the last eight batters and allowed only one base runner to pick up his third save of the season.
Offensively for the Toreros, Meador led the way as he went 2-for-4 with two home runs and two RBI. Haar also looked impressive as he went 2-for-3 with one home run and three RBI.
USD's starter Kyle Blair (2-1) picked up the win on the mound for the Toreros, as he allowed six runs, four earned, on six hits in 6.1 innings of work. Blair was unhittable through the first five innings as he only allowed one hit. Pepperdine's Newman was saddled with the loss for the Waves, as he allowed eight runs on 10 hits in 6.0 innings of work.
The Toreros will return to action on Saturday as they continue their three-game series with Pepperdine at 1 p.m. inside the friendly confines of Cunningham Stadium.
