‘We control our own destiny’: USC baseball prepares for postseason

The school year might have ended for many Trojans, but USC baseball is just getting into the thick of it.

After taking one out of three games against Arizona this past weekend, USC secured the No. 4 spot in the Pac-12 standings, its highest regular season finish since 2015, when it finished third. The Trojans were picked to finish second-to-last in the Preseason Coaches’ Poll.

“There’s a picture of that in our locker room of the preseason coaches poll as a reminder to look at every day so we know just to work that much harder to get to where we want to be because our fate is never determined by somebody else,” senior pitcher Blake Sodersten said. 

The Trojans are in the middle of pool play in the Pac-12 tournament. After beating UCLA 6-4 Tuesday, the Trojans have an off-day Wednesday before taking on Washington Thursday.

The Pac-12 tournament has nine total teams, with three groups of three teams. Each team will play all other teams in their respective pools. At the conclusion of pool play, the winners of each group will advance to the semifinals.

A wildcard spot will be awarded to the fourth and final team. Since teams only play two games in pool play, the wildcard will likely come down to a tiebreaker. In this tournament, the tiebreaker goes to whichever team is seeded higher.

Since the Trojans are seeded fourth, they have the tiebreaker over five teams in the tournament, meaning they do not necessarily have to win their group to advance to the semifinals.

After beating the Bruins Tuesday, the Trojans have multiple paths to get into the semifinals. Win their next game and they’re in, or lose their next game and hope the tiebreaker falls in their favor.

The Trojans now look to take on the Huskies and secure their spot in the next round of the tournament. USC most recently played Washington on the road in late April, getting swept by the Huskies. It was not complete dominance by the Huskies, with the Trojans losing by an average of two runs per game.

“They were all good games, all competitive ball games,” Head Coach Andy Stankiewicz said. “We didn’t play nine innings. They did, they stayed on. They beat us late. They got us late, in the later innings … A great lesson for us is you have to play nine innings.”

Washington finished the regular season at No. 3 in the Pac-12, only half a game above the Trojans. 

The Huskies lineup boasts six hitters who finished the regular season with a batting average over .300, and the team finished fourth in the conference with its .295 team batting average. Across its 49 regular season games, Washington scored 374 runs for an average of 7.63 runs per game. 

“You gotta throw down in the zone,” Stankiewicz said. “You can’t leave the ball all over the plate because they’re big and strong. If you miss, they can get you. We gotta pitch down and in and out. We gotta mix our pitches up.”

It will be strength vs. strength in this matchup, as USC has one of the best pitching staffs in the conference. Pitching was not always a strength for the Trojans though, with USC giving up seven runs per game across its first 10 games. By the end of the regular season, USC had a Pac-12 best 4.27 ERA.

“[Assistant Coach] Seth Etherton has done a really good job with us, on preparing us in the best ways possible on how we go about our business everytime we step out on that mound,” Sodersten said. “Every time we step on that mound, we are going to be a different person out there. And every single time we step out there, we know that we’re pitching with nothing but 100% conviction and confidence.”

Poor weather postponed the first game of the Arizona series this past weekend, forcing the Trojans to play a doubleheader Friday. Stankiewicz was already considering having redshirt freshmen pitcher Eric Hammond get the start against UCLA, but the doubleheader confirmed it would be Hammond.

Although the doubleheader threw off the starting pitching schedule, the back-of-the-bullpen arms have been consistent for the Trojans. Redshirt junior pitcher Kyle Wisch and redshirt senior pitcher Garrett Clarke combined for 14 saves in the regular season, which is the most by a bullpen duo in the Pac-12.

With Stankiewicz emphasizing the Trojans need to play a full nine innings to beat Washington, Clarke and Wisch will be the ones to lock down the end of games for the Trojans.

If the Trojans make the semifinals, they will play that game Friday, with the championship game Saturday.

“It’s always exciting when you get to the postseason,” Stankiewicz said. “Postseason is it, man. You throw away the past, you throw away the batting average, you throw away the ERA, you throw away all of it. Now all that matters is this moment.”

First pitch between the Trojans and the Huskies is scheduled for 2:35 p.m. Thursday at Scottsdale Stadium.