May 30, 2008
LONG BEACH, Calif. - Behind a dominating pitching performance from junior All-American Brian Matusz and a big four-run seventh inning, the second-seeded University of San Diego baseball team claimed a 5-0 win over No. 3 seeded California Friday afternoon in the opening game of the Long Beach Regional to advance to the winners bracket for the first time in program history.
The Toreros (42-15) will return to action on Saturday at 6 p.m. against the winner of the Long Beach State and Fresno State game.
Matusz (12-2) was nothing short of dominating on the mound, as he allowed no runs on three hits, while striking out 10 batters for his third complete game shutout of the season. With the 10 strikeouts, Matusz has become the all-time leader in career strikeouts with 396 and took over the nation's lead for strikeouts with 141. Tyson Ross (7-4) was saddled with the loss for the Golden Bears as he allowed five runs, two earned, on nine hits in 6.2 innings of work.
San Diego got on the scoreboard first, as they scored one run on one hit in the bottom of the sixth inning. With two outs, Josh Romanski drew a walk, then Sean Nicol launched a deep double to centerfield, a ball that hit the top of the fence, then fell back into play, which scored Romanski from first to give USD a 1-0 lead.
The Toreros then added to their lead in the bottom of the seventh inning scoring four runs on five hits. Logan Gelbrich led off the inning by launching the ball deep to centerfield, but the Cal centerfielder had the ball fall out of his glove, allowing Gelbrich to reach second on the error. Victor Sanchez then moved Gelbrich up one base with a sacrifice bunt and Jose Valerio doubled in Gelbrich down the left field line. Nick McCoy kept things going with a run-scoring double to centerfield to score Valerio from second base. Romanski then drove in McCoy with a RBI single through the right side to give USD a 4-0 lead. Back-to-back singles by Nicol and James Meador loaded the bases for USD and Kevin Hansen was then hit by a pitch to push across the fourth run of the inning, which in turn chased Cal's Tyson Ross from the game and gave USD a 5-0 lead.
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Offensively for the Toreros, Nicol led the way as he went 3-for-4 with one double and one RBI. Romanski went 2-for-3 with one RBI, Valerio went 2-for-4 with one double and one RBI and Meador moved his career-high hit streak to 22 games as he went 2-for-three.
