April 7, 2001
By Keith Candau
Media Relations Student Assistant
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The Santa Clara University baseball team dropped a 4-2 decision to 19th ranked Pepperdine Saturday. The Broncos held a 2-1 lead before giving up three runs in the top of the ninth. Pepperdine's record improves to 22-12 and 11-3 in the WCC, while Santa Clara's record falls to 13-21 and 9-5 in the conference.
"Certainly this is a disappointing loss considering we had such an outstanding pitching performance from John Redmond," said Head Coach Mike Cummins. "Pepperdine has a good team and good teams find a way to win when they need to. Today they did that."
Freshman pitcher Redmond (3-3) got the start for the Broncos. In the first inning, Redmond allowed one run off three hits as Daniel Haren hit a RBI single to score Woody Cliffords to take an early 1-0 lead for the Waves. However, Redmond would not allow another batter to reach base until the eighth inning as the southpaw retired the next 19 straight batters. With one out in the eighth inning Redmond hit Rock Mills. Redmond finished the day with eight and a third innings pitched giving up only three runs and no walks in a losing effort.
Pepperdine's starting pitcher, Noah Lowry (9-1), was equally impressive as he earned his second consecutive complete game victory for the Waves and recorded a school-record 15 strikeouts. Santa Clara first scored in the sixth inning as senior Mike Theoharis knocked in Joe Diefenderfer. The Broncos took the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning as Theoharis reached on an error by Tony Garcia that scored Matt Miller.
In the ninth, Redmond gave up back-to-back hits to start the inning. With one out and runners on second and third, pinch hitter Anthony Lopez knocked in the tying run off of freshman Anthony Rea by grounding out to second base. The next batter Duke Sardinha singled in the game winning run. Freshman pitcher Chad Fillinger finished the game for Santa Clara, although it was too late as Pepperdine's three-run ninth inning finished off the Broncos.
Santa Clara was led offensively by Diefenderfer who went 1-for-2 with a run scored and by Theoharis who recorded both of Santa Clara's RBI's. Pepperdine was led by Danny Garcia who went 2-for-4.
These two teams finish the series at Sunday at 1 p.m. at Buck Shaw Stadium.
