No. 10 Trojans to host Pac-12 series against Oregon

The USC baseball team continues its quest of a Pac-12 title this weekend at Dedeaux Field against the Oregon Ducks. The Trojans (27-9, 8-4 Pac-12) rebounded to beat the Pepperdine Waves on the road Tuesday after a tough weekend series against UCLA.

USC and Pepperdine battled through a 12-inning contest, with the Trojans eventually coming out on top, 2-0. In an effort to get back on track after a rough start to the season, junior reliever Kyle Davis was given the start on Tuesday and threw two scoreless innings.

Sophomore Bernardo Flores replaced Davis in the bottom of the third inning and struck out six in four scoreless innings of his own.

Juniors Tyler Gilbert and Marc Huberman combined for the last six innings of the game, holding the Waves scoreless.

Offensively, the Trojans gave themselves plenty of opportunities but stranded baserunners in nine of the 12 innings. USC finally broke through in the top of the 12th, however.

Freshman Adalberto Carrillo led off the inning with a double and advanced to third base on a bunt by redshirt sophomore Reggie Southall.

Redshirt junior Bobby Stahel, who extended his hitting streak to 18 games earlier in the contest, then loaded the bases on catcher’s interference.

After two quick outs, junior Timmy Robinson came through in the clutch with a single to left field to score two go-ahead runs.

Head coach Dan Hubbs, who has been talking about the resiliency of his team all season, said that Tuesday’s win was yet another testament to the team’s toughness.

“The one thing that makes this team different is that they can overcome some adversity. We had to overcome losing three out of four last week,” Hubbs said. “We didn’t swing the bats well [against Pepperdine] but, you know, we got 12 scoreless on the mound. Sometimes you just have to win that way. We’ve been fortunate to have been able to find a bunch of different ways to win, and Tuesday was no exception.”

This weekend, the Trojans will come back home to host a surging Ducks team (21-16, 4-8 Pac-12) that has won four of its last five games after a shaky start to the season.

Oregon’s offense has come together well of late, scoring 31 runs in the past five games alone. Hubbs explained that the key to the Trojans’ success this weekend will be to force Oregon out of its comfort zone at the plate.

“If we can start off on Friday by putting up some zeroes and finding ways to score some runs and put them behind the eight ball, I think that’ll cause them to play a little different,” Hubbs said. “The way they like to play is they like to have action and have the leadoff guy on and maybe bunt him up, play for a run and hope you screw up a bunt or something, and hope it leads to a big inning.”

Even though the Trojan offense has been slightly diminished recently, it still poses a big threat on any given day, with a .298 overall team batting average.

Hubbs said the team’s offense simply needs to focus on putting pressure on the Ducks’ defense instead of trying to do too much at the plate.

“Oregon has made a lot of errors the last couple weeks, so we need to force them to have to make plays,” Hubbs said. “We can’t give them high fly balls and strikeouts, where they don’t have to make plays. If we do that and put a lot of pressure on them, I think we’ll have a chance to score a lot of runs.”

At the moment, USC sits in third place in the Pac-12 standings, even while holding the No. 10 overall ranking in the country.

The UCLA Bruins (26-7, 12-3 Pac-12) lead the conference, followed by Arizona State        (23-10, 11-4 Pac-12), but with eight conference wins and four losses, the Trojans only sit one game behind the Bruins in the loss column.

“Let’s say we have a big weekend and win two out of three, and UCLA loses two out of three. Then, all of a sudden, you’re tied at the top, depending on what Arizona State does,” Hubbs said. “Just because we lost the series to UCLA doesn’t mean we don’t have a shot to win the conference. We still have some big series ahead of us, and we can’t take anything for granted. If we continue to play well, all the goals [the team] has set and all the things we would like to happen are going to happen.”