Mistakes doom Mustangs against Pepperdine

Pepperdine’s Aaron Brown was awesome on the mound on Saturday allowing just one run in eight innings. By Owen Main

Pepperdine committed four errors in Saturday night’s game against Cal Poly at Baggett Stadium, but a litany of other mistakes doomed the Mustangs in their 2-1 loss in Saturday’s regional game. With the loss, Cal Poly’s road to the Super Regional round becomes much tougher. The Mustangs will have to win three games in two days in order to continue on to the next round. Pepperdine will simply have to win one.

“Nobody wins or loses individually. We win as a team, and we lose as a team. We have great support for each other, and we just need to stay confident,” said Cal Poly coach Larry Lee after the game. Here are some ways Cal Poly lost as a team last night.

Base running

Cal Poly’s mistakes on the base paths started early. In the second inning, Jimmy Allen got a late break from third on a ground ball to first base. Though the throw beat him by three steps, Allen’s slide made it closer than that. Cal Poly scored their only run of the game in the third inning, but a little better jump might have helped. The more I think about it, the less I think this was a base running error, but the late jump is worth mentioning.

The first real clear error came in the third inning. Brian Mundell singled with one out. Zack Zehner followed with a hard line-drive right at the first baseman. Mundell froze and then ran back to first base, but failed to slide. The play was close and Mundell was clearly out. Had he slid, Cal Poly’s clean-up hitter might have been given the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, Mundell’s tough day on the bases wasn’t over. In the eighth inning, he hit a ground ball to third base that Pepperdine’s Austin Davidson thew in the dirt, sending us photographers on the warning track scurrying. Mundell rounded first and charged toward second. Again, the play was close. Again, Mundell didn’t slide. Again, he was called out. Instead of having the tying run on second base with two outs and Zehner coming up, Cal Poly was headed to the bottom of the eighth still down by a run.

The Collision

Up 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh, Cal Poly left fielder Zack Zehner and center fielder Jordan Ellis collided on a fly-ball, allowing Pepperdine catcher Aaron Barnett to go all the way to third. The run would score on the next pitch, when second-baseman Hutton Moyer doubled off the right field wall to tie the game. Moyer later scored on  a John Schuknecht error, and Pepperdine had all they needed to finish off the Mustangs.

After the game, Zehner took full responsibility.

“There was a lack of communication, actually,” said Zehner. “I called it first, and he came in second. He’s the center fielder, so it’s his ball, and I didn’t get out of the way… . He called it. It’s his ball. I got to get out of the way.”

Flush it

Cal Poly has done a good job all season with coming back from losses, especially at home.

The Mustangs won series against then top-20 teams UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine after Friday night losses at home. They also took the UCLA series after losing the Friday night game.

For both players and fans, their experience throughout the season may prove important over the next 36 hours.

“You have to be able to flush and not be concerned about what happened,” said Lee. “The reality is we have to win three ballgames to get out of here, but we can’t think about tomorrow night at 6:00, we’ve got to think about tomorrow at 1:00. We’ve been resilient all year. We went through the one stretch where we lost four straight, but besides that we never lost back-to-back ballgames. Winning 46 games is good. This is a good group. We just have to stay together.”

Cal Poly’s hitting on Saturday was definitely flushable, managing just three hits all game. The good news is, most of the best pitchers on other teams have been used at this point. Today, Cal Poly will presumably face Sacramento State’s third-best starter.

“The longer this regional lasts, I think there’s a possibility that we are equipped offensively. we have a solid offensive team and once you start playing your third, fourth, and fifth game, now some of the starting pitching is lessened,” said Lee.

Cal Poly starting pitcher, Casey Bloomquist talked about flushing memories of past plays as something he tries to do as well. It’s a mentality that Cal Poly will need to take to heart if they have a chance of winning three in a row.

“I try to have a short memory and not think too much about it,” said Bloomquist. “Just look to the future, because there’s nothing you can do about the past.”

Photos by Owen Main