Monday, May 13, 1996
Second straight loss puts UCLA in must-win situationBy Yoni
Tamler
Daily Bruin Staff
The running time of Sunday’s ball game at Jackie Robinson
Stadium was close to four hours, but for the UCLA baseball team, it
seemed more like an eternity.
The Bruins took a 13-3 punishing from USC on Sunday, losing
their second straight in a three-game series with the Trojans. The
Bruins (32-23 overall, 16-13 Six-Pac) have lost five straight games
in league and seven out of their last eight, putting all the more
weight of UCLA’s playoff ramifications on tonight’s 7 p.m.
conference finale at Dedeaux Field.
If you were a UCLA pitcher, you did not want to be caught in the
bullpen on Sunday. Kevin Sheredy made his second career UCLA start,
holding USC to three runs in four innings. But after Sheredy
departed, the collaboration of UCLA relievers Ryan Lynch, Matt
Klein, and Jake Meyer yielded ten runs on 13 hits.
"You kept thinking (Lynch) was gonna get him out," explained
UCLA head coach Gary Adams, "He was pitching with good velocity, he
had a good curveball, but his location killed him."
As the Trojans gradually warmed to UCLA’s slippery-slope
pitching, the Bruins had an increasingly harder time scoring off
USC’s Randy Flores (7-1). The Bruins hung one run on the board in
the first, but did not score again until Eric Valent’s two-run
homer, his 11th this season, in the seventh.
"(USC) did a good job of hitting the ball with people on base.
At the beginning of the game we put people on base but we couldn’t
drive them in."
On Saturday, USC’s Seth Etherton (12-1) became the first pitcher
in Pac-10 history to finish the conference season a perfect 10-0
when he shut down the Bruins, 5-4, at Dedeaux Field.
Etherton struck out seven and did not walk a batter through
eight, but he was matched the entire way by UCLA’s Jim Parque.
Although he picked up his third straight loss, Parque allowed one
less hit than Etherton and fanned eight batters through as many
innings.
The Bruins had a chance to tie the score in the top of the
ninth, when pinch runner Rob Schult advanced to second with two
outs. Chad Matoian singled to right field and Schult was sent home.
Jeff Inglin’s heave beat Schult to the plate for the final out of
the ball game.
The game marked Zak Ammirato’s first game back after missing
five weeks with a blood clot. Ammirato, batting .345 when he went
on the disabled list, led the Bruins with three hits including a
double and his second home run of the year. Troy Glaus also homered
for the 15th time this season, bringing his streak of consecutive
games with a homer to five, a new school record.
Now the Bruins return to Dedeaux Field in what could be a
must-win situation in order to make the NCAA regionals. A win in
tonight’s game would give UCLA a split with Six-Pac champion USC,
having defeated the Trojans twice earlier in the season.
UCLA will start either Dan Keller (6-3, 4.89) or Nick St. George
(1-2, 3.94) because of Pete Zamora’s recurring back problems.