Saturday, March 12, 2005

HUGHES AND THE NINER’S RABBITS-FOOT OFFENSE TRY TO SHINE LB’S POST-SEASON RESUME

In most of the land they call this selection Sunday but the Dirtbags go to work today with the last Sunday in May in mind because if you win enough series during a college season the NCAA baseball selectors will let you play on and maybe even at home.

The Beach boys, who were in-offensive in a 2-1 loss to Houston Friday night, have a chance to win their fifth series of the young season today thanks to a re-discovered picket fence offense and more hide-the-ball pitching in a 5-1 caging of the Cougars. The Beach scored single runs in each of the first three innings and never looked back after UH jumped out in their first at-bat with a single run on Brad Lincoln's RBI-single but Marco Estrada and friends combined to hold UH to only two hits over the final eight scoreless innings. Estrada improved to 4-0 giving up a mere one run off four hits with eight strikeouts in six innings. The offense collected 11 hits led by Evan Longoria, 3-for-5 with a run and RBI, Brandon Godfrey 3-for-5 with an RBI and Sean Boatright, 2-for-4 with a run and RBI. Today Jared Hughes, 1-1, 2.61 ERA goes against Coog soph Brad Lincoln. Hughes had also better hope that the Niner luck, MIA for a week or so, sticks around. The Beach tied the game in the bottom of the first when Boatright's looping RBI-single into center field scored Chuck Sindlinger, who reached after a dropped third strike. After Marco left the Niner pitching continued to impress when Steve Hammond pitched two shutout innings out of the pen before Neil Jamison nailed the win with a perfect ninth. For your stat freaks a win this afternoon could help get the attention of the pollsters who right now have the Beach at No. 26 but would be able to grow their record to 14-8 with another 3-1 week. That’s the IF. Houston dropped to 7-10 but has played a much tougher schedule.

SUNDAY MY DUST WILL COME--With Houston still scratching away LBSU bought some late game insurance when they added two runs in the sixth inning on back-to-back singles from Sindlinger and Godfrey…and Coach Weathers noticed…”we got some of those key hits today and had some good at bats…Marco wasn’t his best today but he really competed”…and how about today’s lineup, “I told them after the game for all the positions players to get some rest because you never know what nine will be out there”…Cole Jacobson made some strong throws from third, Tom Wolf got a hit at DH and Zach Barger played a solid LF but Ked twice…a lump in the offense was 11 left on base, that’s a bit higher than the 9.15 they average and that is too darn high…the team defense is too darn low at .966 but the ERA is 2.21 so you run what you brung…my eagle eyed reader Jerry H remembered that quote from yesterday (when you tell them that Ramos only game up a couple of hits what somebody is going to say is, ‘yeah, but did the Dirtbags win?”) as a quip by Don Drysdale, when he was informed about Sandy Koufax's one-hitter…Police blotter…Bottle tosser ejected on a not-close call at third Friday night was from the Houston section but was not wearing any UCI garb…local joke from hoops…more fighting and feuding down at the BWC tourney during the USU –Fullerton game…a fight broke out between two fans with 7:25 remaining near Utah State's student section…in both cases security came to the scene and led the offending fans out of the area…at least all the coaches stayed, unlike the past couple of weekends when three got tossed at Blair…now if you are like me and Jimmy Mac, Darlene, Don and other beautiful people not available for the road to Wichita (and you are still in town) the 49er volleyballers will host the Active Ankle Tournament in the Walter next weekend playing Rutgers on Friday Night and IPFW on Saturday Night at 7:30 pm…on the softball side the Beach lost to Florida 5-0 then enjoyed a 4-0 nightcap win over LMU and wind up their party about the time you are reading this…and we called the Utah State upset of Pacific but the Big West cash box will benefit with two teams in the post party for the first time since 1993 when another team that would leave the conference, New Mexico State, was joined by, tad da, Long Beach State…the Beach ran to a lead on Illinois in that tourney then Seth slowed it down and lost 75-72 in Salt Lake…last add scoring at home… Fullerton 9, Tulane 8; Texas Tech 14, UC Irvine 10; LMU 4, UC Santa Barbara, 2; Portland 9, Pacific 7, and USC 6, Wichita State 4 …shock on—DR. DAN

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