NICOLE MILLER/ Daily Bruin Freshman Mike
Davern pitched against USC this past weekend. UCLA
4, USC 3 UCLA 0, USC 6 UCLA 4,
USC 5
By Dylan Hernandez
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The three-game non-conference set over the weekend between the
UCLA and USC baseball teams was closer than expected.
The Trojans (8-2) were the No. 2 team in the country, but had to
go 11 innings in the final contest to take two of the three games
from the unranked Bruins (8-4) at Jackie Robinson Stadium.
“We got beat by the No. 1, 2, or 3 team in the
nation,” UCLA Head Coach Gary Adams said. “It shows how
close we are to being a doggone good team.”
“UCLA’s a good club,” USC Head Coach Mike
Gillespie said. “If people who haven’t played them
don’t understand this, they’ll be surprised.”
The series opener Friday was billed as a showdown between the
country’s top two draft-eligible pitchers, UCLA’s Josh
Karp and USC’s Mark Prior, and drew a season-high 850 fans
and scouts to the Bruins’ home stadium.
As Karp started warming up on the mound, a wave of radar guns
rose from the sea of scouts sitting behind home plate each time he
entered his motion.
Karp, paying little attention to the clocking devices,
readjusted his cup and went to work.
In the first two innings, he struck out three, not allowing a
single hit. Prior matched him, fanning three in the opening two
frames as well.
Karp, however, was touched in the third. USC used three hits and
a sacrifice bunt to score two runs.
The Bruins pulled to within one in the bottom of that inning
when Brian Baron singled home rightfielder Ben Francisco, but the
Trojans added another run in the fourth.
The two aces didn’t give up any more runs during the rest
of their outings, which were shortened due to pitch counts. Karp
left the game with nine strikeouts in six innings while Prior had
12 in seven.
“I felt relaxed,” Karp said. “I felt I had a
good rhythm at the end. I didn’t really want to leave the
game, especially being down.”
“I was going up against one of the best pitchers in the
nation,” Prior said. “It was a well-played
ballgame.”
Even though the All-American hurlers were out of the game, the
score remained 3-1 entering the bottom of the ninth.
With two out, two on and his team down by two in the final
frame, Bruin leftfielder Adam Berry came up to face Trojan reliever
Brian Bannister. Waiting patiently for a good pitch to hit, Berry
worked the count to two and two.
Then came the pitch he was waiting for.
Bannister misplaced a slider ““ throwing it belt-high down
the middle ““ and Berry slammed it over the left field wall to
give UCLA a 4-3 win.
Saturday’s game also displayed masterful pitching, but
this time it was one-sided.
2000 Pac-10 Co-Pitcher of the Year Rik Currier of USC shut out
UCLA in his eight innings of work, recording seven strikeouts in
the 6-0 Trojan win. He yielded only two hits and walked two, while
UCLA senior Jon Brandt took the loss.
“There was definitely a letdown,” Bruin shortstop
Josh Canales said. “We broke their hearts last night and
today, we let them back in.”
“We just didn’t go to the plate with a plan,”
third baseman Randall Shelley added. “We have to come out
with a little more intensity.”
The scales were once again balanced on Sunday.
Starting pitchers Bobby Roe of UCLA and Anthony Reyes of USC
battled evenly through four innings before giving way to their deep
bullpens.
At the end of nine, the score was level at four.
The tie was finally broken in the 11th. Trojan pinch hitter,
Michael Morales, who was a team manager last year, singled to
right-center, driving in Jon Brewster.
“Today’s loss is tough to swallow,” Canales
said.
The Bruins face Pepperdine (8-1) today at 2 p.m.