Trojans blast Utes to win weekend series
A sliver of sun emerged on an overcast Sunday afternoon during the fourth inning at Dedeaux Field, when USC baseball scored its first runs of the game and didn’t look back.
Lace ‘em up · Sophomore shortstop Blake Lacey came up clutch in the Trojans’ victory over the Utes on Sunday, recording 4 RBI, including USC’s first two runs of the day and the runs that put USC up 6-1 in the 5th inning. – Joseph Chen | Daily Trojan
In fact, the sun seemed to cut through the gloom during the most pivotal moments in Sunday’s 13-2 win over Utah, which pushed the Trojans to 17-17 overall, and 6-9 in Pac-12 conference play.
“It’s no secret we’ve been struggling to score runs, as has Utah,” said USC head coach Dan Hubbs. “But it’s like I told the guys: We lost one we probably should’ve won on Friday. We won one we had no business winning on Saturday with how many guys we put on base and found some way to Houdini out of it and then today we played a complete game. We pitched well and we played solid defense and we got a lot of hits.”
USC stepped up to the plate under pressure in the 4th, delivering a string of hits with two outs. After a gift wild pitch, sophomore shortstop Blake Lacey bulleted a single into left field, driving home the first two Trojan runs of the day.
Lacey played hero again in the bottom of the 4th, saving what could have been a break-open inning by scrambling to field a ball that ricocheted off sophomore pitcher Brent Wheatley’s back, stepping on second and throwing to first for an unassisted double play.
The Trojans would add six more runs off six hits the following inning, two in the 6th and 7th and another in the 8th to solidify their commanding win.
“I think it was good for them to get a lot of hits with men in scoring position and drive some runs in and see that they’re capable of doing it,” Hubbs said.
Wheatley would depart after 5.1 innings with one run and sophomore pitcher Kyle Twomey would pitch 2.2 scoreless innings in relief. After exhausting the bullpen in Saturday’s game, the two performances were clutch.
“For Brent to come out and do what he did and get us into the sixth and having Kyle [Twomey] ready, it really made it nice to have that lead,” Hubbs said. “We didn’t have to think about throwing in [sophomore] Kyle [Davis] because we’ve just been riding him like crazy.”
For the fifth time this season, the Trojans scraped by with a 3-2 walkoff victory on Saturday in the bottom of the 9th inning. It wasn’t as glamorous as some of the Trojans’ previous walkoffs, but for a team that relies more on manufacturing runs than producing them on power alone, the game-winning sacrifice fly was more than sufficient.
On Friday, junior right hander Wyatt Strahan recorded a career-high 11 strikeouts, but despite achieving a new personal best, the Trojans dropped the contest 4-3 in 13 innings. The outing brought out some of the best in Strahan, who was able to surmount shaky control early to end his night with 2 runs on only 2 hits in 7 innings.
The performance was all for naught, as USC struggled behind the dish, failing to take advantage of fruitful walkoff opportunities. The Trojans failed to plate runners in scoring position in the 9th, 10th, 12th and 13th innings.
USC has the day off on Tuesday, and welcomes Arizona for a three-game series, starting on Thursday at 7 p.m.
Hubbs hopes Sunday’s easy victory will propel them heading forward and that if the Trojans can continue to play complete games.
“We’ll start seeing what we think is the potential of this team,” Hubbs said.