Sunday, March 16, 2008

LONG DISTANCE AND LONG BALLS: LONG BEACH STATE MAKES ANOTHER WINNING SERIES STATEMENT

Call this confessions of an inter-net fan if you like, but pressing appointments with Uncle Sam (my tax return) and must see volleyball (LB vs. Penn State) kept me in LB on Saturday during that wild and windy 9-6 Niner win over USC at Dedeaux. So how do you go from a taut little ball 2-1 thriller with just one error to a gorilla ball affair with three homers and five errors?

The answer comes from that famous real estate mantra: location, location, location. Night games at Blair with Andrew Liebel and the best guy the other folks have mean one thing; a breezy afternoon in a smallish ball park is something else. Today the Beach (11-3) will try to impress the pollsters with another three in a row weekend and who knows what Mother Nature and Father Weathers have in mind for hard luck USC.
On Saturday, the talented student radio folks at SC were my window to the world since the expected video feed never materialized. Never mind with Game Tracker on all was well and besides the kids left their mikes open and you picked up extra stuff along with the symphonic background sounds of the campus carillons and south central sirens. After being shut out for the last eight innings Friday night the Trojans went four more scoreless frames before Vasquez and Green were the major players in two three run innings. Thanks to Jason Markovitz, who got the win and Brian Shaw, who got the save, Troy stayed quiet down the stretch. Shane Peterson drove in three with his 4-for-5 day, Jason Corder hit a home run, doubled and walked twice and Jonathan Jones broke the last tie (6-6 in the eighth) with a screaming RBI triple down the left field chalk. On the day it was the patented picket fence offense and not the crooked numbers. The Beach put up runs in seven innings but still stranded nine. Coming in the chat was about the shaky SC D and it came true in the sixth when a Beach bunt to third baseman Billy Pinkerton was thrown away and two gift runs came in. Vance Worley burned some innings before Roberts served up the three run homer to Green in the seventh.

HOOVER DUST—Peterson continued smoking with two doubles and three RBI for the 49ers and Jason Tweedy was 3-for-5…Markovitz upped his record to 2-0, with 1.2 perfect innings…it was Shaw’s fourth save of the season...in the seventh Pinkerton led off by reaching on a rare throwing error by Espinosa and when Buss walked Roberts had an 0-2 count on Green who slammed his first homer to tie the game at six apiece…Espinosa scored twice and got a sacrifice fly …RPI list has at lot of BWC teams really high nationally…LBSU checking in at #4. UCI #6 and Fullerton #8…on the strength of schedule the Trojans are either #1 or #2 and the Beach is #9…today teen sensation Jake Thompson goes for LB against USC’s Ryan Cook, a seven game winner in 2007, with a 3.43 and 2-1 record this season…guess all that K rep for LB got to the Trojans, they swung early and often again on Saturday and nobody struck out…former Beach hoop coach Seth Greenberg said yesterday that if his Va Tech team doesn’t get in everybody on the NCAA selection committee is “certifiably insane.” Gee is that the new image of our sweet old Seth who lobbied his way to an ACC coach of the year prize?...Penn State volleyball is tall and talented but their bench had more whine last night than the Napa Valley. Long Beach scrapped their way to a game five but two Lion overpasses were bumped back instead of being put down and LB lost…lots of key matches left but a missed opportunity to shine the post-season resume…the good news Beach report were wins by softball and tennis…so this time last year Scott Waterman was getting his LB team ready for the Big Dance…cut loose with all the rest of the Niner coaches anticipating the NCAA violation report Waterman was picked up by Fullerton and the Titans (81-66 over Irvine) will know later today who, when and where…On the Big West scoreboard for Saturday—UCLA 12, Cal Poly 9; Pacific 3, Minnesota 1; UC Santa Barbara 6, Southern Utah 5; UC Irvine 14 and 13, Hawaii 3 and 4;Arizona 6, Cal State Fullerton 2; UC Santa Barbara 10, Southern Utah 7; UC Davis 12 and 7, Santa Clara 5 and 3; and SDSU, our Tuesday guest, clobbered BYU 13-6…the Titans earn my “schadenfreude salute” (in German it means "a malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others.") for losing their third in a row—DR. DAN

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