Friday, April 15, 2005

LB HOPES THE POUND MACHINE JOINS THE MOUND MACHINE AS THE CSUN SETS AT BLAIR

Go ahead and get comfortable because we have some catching up to do. We last dusted together last weekend at Irvine when, despite the head Anteater proclaiming that Irvine had “recaptured the momentum”, the Niner mound and pound men showed up at the same time and stilled the “state school” chants for another season. This weekend we welcome good guy Steve Rousey, perhaps the founding father of the great LB pitching tradition. He was the pitching coach from ’93 to -’95 when the 49ers claimed two BWC titles, made three regionals, (CWS semifinals in 1993), with three pitchers earning All-American honors including National Pitcher of the Year Daniel Choi.

That’s the past. Steve has a bit less to work these days. Tonight features the Big West’s winningest pitcher, lefthander Cesar Ramos (7-3, 1.67) against CSUN lefty closer Kyle Jean. On Saturday, righthander Marco Estrada (5-0, 1.77) will look to remain perfect against fellow rightie Peter Eberhardt and on Sunday BWC pitcher of the Week, Jared Hughes (4-2, 2.67), will face hard luck Jimmy Brettl, loser of his last 10 decisions. Back to the recap, the 49ers took two of three at UCI, 5-1 in conference and around #14 in the polls. On Tuesday the homeboys went road bound again to the U with a View, Pepperdine. “We made five mental errors in the game”, Weathers would note during his Wednesday night Pizza-side chat after the 4-3 loss yet his team almost made a come back. On Thursday the Beach sent out two more teams, first the ladies of tennis who clocked Fullerton 7-0 and now get ready and set for the BWC tourney next weekend when they open versus # 6 seed CS Northridge at 2pm with hopes of working their way to the final for the fifth consecutive year and hopefully a third title in four years. Thursday night the most recent volleyball number one UCLA game into Walt’s Vault, (aka the Pyramid) and we quote from the insightful Andy Read,”It was like a heavyweight title match. There was a buzz in the air; everyone in the arena had a sense that this was not just another conference match. And for more than 2 hours both teams went at each other with an energy and a passion that is uncommon in a regular season match… this was playoff atmosphere. Both the 49ers and the Bruins gave as well as the took… first one team getting their opponent onto the ropes, and then seeing them fight off the ropes and stagger their opponent into a timeout.” Last of the week’s happenings occurred earlier today with the mass submissions of creative writing and accounting entries by the Niner nation, aka, income tax returns.



MIXED DUST—Oddly the all-time series record for CSUN and LBSU is tied 51-51-1, dating all the way back to the first season of Matador baseball in 1959…LB has won the last three games…no shame in the Wave lost, the Peppers have moved back into the national spotlight at No. 29 in Collegiate Baseball for Steve Rodriguez’ club, at 23-10 and 10-1 in the West Coast Conference... they won 12 of their last 14, and split with the Beach this year each winning at home 4-3…Neil Jamison continues to be a national name and recorded his 9th save in relief of Cesar Friday behind the Orange curtain, pitching a perfect 9th inning…despite the Tuesday loss the team ERA dropped again to 2.04 behind North Carolina, 2.01...the Heels play Miami this weekend...weekend BWC action, with record and next opponent--Fullerton 5-1 (Pacific); Long Beach 5-1 (Northridge); Cal Poly 5-1 ("Non-conf" vs. Davis); Pacific 3-3 (at Fullerton); Irvine 2-4 (at Riverside); UCSB 1-2 (Non-conf vs. UCLA A/H/H); Riverside 0-3 (Irvine); Northridge 0-6 (at Long Beach)…now these scores from that Spring volleyball practice party at UCSB with the Beach beating Fullerton; 30-17, 30-28; UC Irvine; 30-18, 30-17; Cal Poly SLO; 30-24, 30-15; and splitting with UC Santa Barbara; 30-26, 26-30…max of two games for every team and our roving reporter Glenn Murlin said, “I thought the team looked pretty good considering they'd only practiced five days. Most of the other teams there had been at it a week or longer…last add Mats, they have lost seven straight, are 12-17-1, have a better than us .283 batting average but woeful .940 fielding percentage and 6.11 team ERA...Erik Hagstrom, .356 with a team-best 17 RBIs, and Paul Wilson,.328 are the best of the visiting sticks…Tulo, Sean and Jones are lead the LB offense, Boats has a 12-game hit streak and hits 320, Tulo has hit safely in 7 of the last 8 games to put his average at .344, Jones has been clutch at times and hits .337…and the star on the rise, Brandon Godfrey, 7 hit in last nine ABs .333 and a team leading 20 RBIs—DR. DAN

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