April 20, 2007
MALIBU, Calif. - A seven-run inning from the No. 11 Pepperdine Waves was all it took Friday afternoon to put the Santa Clara baseball team in a hole from which it could not escape. The Broncos, despite striking first and also getting a pair of home runs from Ryan Conan and Brady Fuerst, fell victim to nine unanswered runs en route to suffering a 10-3 defeat at the hands of the Waves in Malibu.
The teams return to action Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m., with Sunday's finale also set for a 1 p.m. first pitch.
Conan went 2-for-4 and hit his team-leading seventh home run of the season Friday, while Fuerst hit the first of his SCU career to provide two of SCU's three runs. Gabe Alcantar and David Hoffmire also had a pair of hits, while Tommy Medica drove in a run and went 1-for-4.
But the Broncos just could not deal a serious blow to Pepperdine's 2006 All-American starter Barry Enright, who went eight innings, striking out five and allowing only three runs while earning his 10th win of the season.
SCU starter Nate Garcia had a rough outing, giving up nine runs on eight hits in just eight innings. Justin Kuehn worked the final five innings for the Broncos, giving up a run on four hits.
The Broncos opened the scoring in the first, as Matt Long doubled and stole third with one out, and was driven in by Medica's single to center.
Garcia faced only seven batters as he kept the Waves off the board for the first two innings, but ran into trouble right away in the third. A pair of walks and an infield hit from the first three batters of the inning loaded the sacks, and the Waves evened the score as Danny Worth's infield hit to the hole between shortstop and third base brought in Matthew Frazee.
Another infield hit from Eric Thames gave Pepperdine the lead, and Donald Brown's base hit to right scored two and just like that, the floodgates were opened. Two batters later, a groundout to first from Luke Salas, the eighth batter of the frame, brought in another run while providing the first out of the inning, and Denny Duron followed with a two-run single to cap the scoring in the third.
Pepperdine scored twice more in the fourth on a Worth double to left-center, and never looked back.
Santa Clara got home runs from Fuerst in the seventh, and Conan in the eighth, and the Waves tacked on another run in the eighth to provide the final margin.
