Coming into the weekend, the USC-UCLA baseball crosstown rivalry was set to have the highest stakes it had seen in a long time, with a three-game series marking the first ranked matchup between the two in over a decade and the highest-ranked matchup in Big Ten history. 

The No. 14 Trojans (27-7, 10-5 Big Ten) enjoyed the best start to a season in program history, while the No. 1 Bruins (30-2, 15-0) came into the series on a 20-game win streak, representing two of the biggest stories in college baseball this season. 

Though USC kept the series competitive, it was unable to take down its toughest opponent of the year, being swept in three games against UCLA — proving why the Bruins are the top-ranked team in the nation. While the Trojans lost by a combined 15 runs, all three games were within one run in the sixth inning or later. The series loss was USC’s first of the season.

“You gotta have a short memory in this game,” Head Coach Andy Stankiewicz said in a postgame interview Saturday. “You gotta let the bad days go. If you dwell on them, then typically more bad days come.”

Huge inning helps Bruins pull away late 

Friday’s series opener was set to be a pitching duel between each program’s ace, as the Trojans’ junior pitcher Mason Edwards faced off against junior pitcher Logan Reddemann. Despite boasting stellar resumes entering the game, both pitchers had their worst outings of the season, yet managed to keep the offenses relatively in check. 

Edwards went only 4 2/3 innings, his second-shortest start of the season, and allowed four runs total — a solid outing considering the Bruins were averaging over nine runs per game coming into the matchup, but the outing nearly doubled his absurdly low 0.67 ERA to 1.20. Reddemann also gave up a season-high four runs in his six innings pitched, leaving the game tied at 4-4 by the time both starters had left the game. 

USC’s offensive production came primarily from its two home run leaders. Junior outfielder Andrew Lamb knocked in two Trojans with his homer in the second inning, followed by sophomore catcher Augie Lopez, who crushed a solo home run — his fourth in as many games — to stay hot and level the score at four in the sixth inning.

However, USC was unable to score after the sixth-inning homers, while UCLA took it to the Trojan bullpen in the eighth inning, scoring seven runs, partly thanks to three USC errors, to seal the Trojan’s 12-4 loss. USC went through four different pitchers in an inning it would like to forget, including freshmen pitchers Gavin Lauridsen and Cameron Fausset, junior pitcher Sax Matson and graduate pitcher Henry Chabot.

“We [have] got to realize like, ‘Hey, I can make a big pitch here and make a good play on defense to minimize the runs there,’” Stankiewicz said. “[We’ve] got to get a little bit grittier, a little bit tougher in those moments, and make pitches and play better defense.”

Trojans come up short in back-and-forth battle 

Game two of the series featured even more offense; though this time it was more well balanced, it still led to the same outcome. The Trojans tallied 11 hits while the Bruins picked up 12, resulting in a 9-8 loss for USC, by far the closest final result of the series.

The Trojans’ offensive output was led by multi-hit games from junior infielder Abbrie Covarrubias — his 10th such game on the season — junior infielder Adrian Lopez and junior outfielder Kevin Takeuchi, who each picked up an RBI. Junior catcher Isaac Cadena also picked up two of USC’s RBIs, one of which came from the only Trojan extra-base hit of the game, a fifth-inning double off sophomore pitcher Wylan Moss. 

“The guys did a nice job of regrouping,” Stankiewicz said of his offense’s response to Friday’s game. “That’s just part of our development too, as a program.”

Based on precedent, the offense did enough to win, as the Trojans had previously been undefeated when scoring five or more runs. Despite this, Saturday’s battle followed the same pitching formula as Friday: season-worst starts that kept the game within reach followed by underwhelming relief pitching. 

Sophomore pitcher Grant Govel allowed four earned runs, his highest mark this season, while only lasting five innings, his shortest outing. The relief pitchers struggled to pick up Govel, with freshman pitcher Diego Velazquez giving up four runs in just 2/3 of an inning; a wild pitch from redshirt junior Adam Troy brought home the eventual game-winning UCLA run, clinching the Bruin series victory with the 9-8 loss. 

“In those big moments, they’re going to score runs, but give them a two,” Stankiewicz said on limiting the downpour of runs in an inning. “You start giving fours and fives … that’s the stuff you’ve got to avoid.”

UCLA stars shine to complete sweep  

USC’s attempt to salvage the series against its crosstown rival was reminiscent of the first game of the series: The Trojans competed early, but a late effort by the Bruins put the contest out of reach, with the 10-4 loss ensuring a winless weekend.

The Trojans came within one run of UCLA in the sixth inning, thanks to a couple of errors that made the score 5-4. However, that was when the Bruins’ star-studded lineup showed what it was truly capable of with five unanswered runs off sophomore starting pitcher Andrew Johnson, and the USC bullpen.

UCLA’s stars in junior outfielder Will Gasparino, junior first baseman Mulivai Levu and junior infielder Roch Cholowsky all rank as D1Baseball’s top players in the Big Ten at their respective positions, with Cholowsky widely regarded as the top prospect in this year’s MLB draft. The three combined for seven hits, four home runs and nine RBIs in Sunday’s game. 

“It’s easy to fight yourself a little bit when you’re facing a pretty good offensive unit, like they are. So we get that,” Stankiewicz said. “We knew that was going to be part of the weekend. They got a nice lineup.”  

The top-ranked Bruins put up 31 runs over the three-game series, an uncharacteristically poor performance from a Trojan pitching staff that boasts a 3.43 ERA on the season. 

“Our relieving core left some balls up over the plate,” Stankiewicz said. “[There were] moments where we needed the ball to be down instead of up, and probably caught a little bit too much plate. And so as a result, they hit some extra base hits and [had] big moments to drive in some runs.” 

USC will look to bounce back, as after taking a 5-1 loss to UC Santa Barbara (20-10, 8-4 Big West) on Tuesday, the Trojans are set to host Iowa (18-12, 5-7 Big Ten) in a three-game series starting Friday at 7 p.m.