Tulane University
USC
Tulane Evens Series with USC with 7-3 Victory
Mar 7, 2009 | Baseball
March 7, 2009
New Orleans- The Tulane baseball club came back to even the series with USC at one game apiece with a 7-3 victory Saturday afternoon at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium.
The Green Wave, who played one of their most well-rounded games of the young season, got on the board early when senior Seth Henry belted his third home run of the year, a solo shot hat was laced down the right field line off of Trojans' starter Kevin Couture, giving Green Wave southpaw Matt Petiton a the 1-0 lead headed into his second inning of work. Petiton is 2-0 on the season, while Couture drops to 2-1.
"It was good to see us put a couple crooked numbers up there," head coach Rick Jones said. "We've been struggling a little bit offensively and we had a big inning and we haven't had a lot of those so by doing so, it really helped."
The rest of the Tulane order followed Henry's fashion in the second, putting up a four spot that was started when designated hitter Jeremy Schaffer got the inning going with a leadoff single to center field. Steve Moritz replicated Schaffer's efforts with another single and with one out, catcher Jared Dyer doubled down the left field line, scoring Schaffer and advancing Moritz to third. Josh Prince stepped into the box and hit his third triple of the season, plating both Moritz and Dyer and giving the Green Wave a 4-0 advantage over the Trojans. Prince later scored on a Nick Boullosa sacrifice bunt, and Tulane led 5-0 headed into the third.
The Trojans finally got on the board in their half of the third, when Trojans' left fielder Garret Houts got hold of one, taking the Petiton pitch over the right center field wall, making it 5-1 in favor of the Wave. Petiton went on to retire the next two batters in order, getting Tulane back into the dugout to continue their offensive attack.
The Trojans, who brought in reliever Andrew Triggs to start off the bottom of the third, still couldn't contain the Green Wave, as the home team kept swinging the bats. Moritz picked up his second hit of three off of the USC reliever, bringing up right fielder Drew Allain, who continued to stay hot for the club with a home run to right center field, his second in the last three games. The ball, which cleared the yellow line rimming the outfield wall, was originally called a ground-rule double but changed to a round-tripper upon review by the umpire crew. The two-run shot gave Tulane the 7-1 advantage over the visiting Trojans of Southern Cal.
USC picked up two more runs in the fourth in the form of a Anthony Vasquez two-run blast but Petiton continued to battle through the innings and finished the day throwing 7.0 innings, giving up three runs on seven hits.
"I thought Matt Petiton did a good job of keeping them off balance," Jones said. "Today was a tough day to pitch with the wind was howling to right and to keep the ball down and to keep the hitters off balance was a real positive for him."
Wave reliever Preston Claiborne picked up his first save of the year, throwing two innings out of the bullpen and only giving up one hit while striking out three to secure the Tulane win.
The Green Wave will look to win the series Sunday as they take on the Trojans in the finale. First pitch is slated for 11:30AM at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium.
