Arizona baseball recap: Wildcats clinch USC series with 5-1 victory

Back to .500 in conference play

After dropping four consecutive Pac-12 games, the Arizona Wildcats have now taken the first two of their three-game series against the USC Trojans, clinching the weekend with a 5-1 decision. This makes both teams 4-4 in conference play to this point, which makes them tied for fourth in the Pac-12.

The Wildcats fell behind 1-0 early, but were able to erase that in the bottom of the third.

Louis Boyd drew a one-out walk, and moved up to second on an Alfonso Rivas single.

That brought Jared Oliva to the plate, and he was able to tie things up with a two-out single to left center.

The inning comes to an end, but not before we claim the lead, highlighted by this RBI single https://t.co/0LL0rKwpPH

4⃣

Arizona 2

USC 1

— Arizona Baseball (@ArizonaBaseball) April 2, 2017

Arizona took the lead after this on a wild pitch.

When the same chunk of the order came up again in the fifth, more of the same happened.

A Boyd walk led to him scoring on another Oliva RBI single. But this time, JJ Matijevic added to the damage, blasting a poorly located pitch off of the top of the intimidator board in right field.

Make that 5-1 after a MONSTROUS #MatijevicMash! https://t.co/IUL1si6sFU

— Arizona Baseball (@ArizonaBaseball) April 2, 2017

These big hits all came with two outs in the inning. Arizona was 4-for-10 in such situations, while USC was hitless with two down. The Trojans were also just 1-of-12 with runners on base.

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Randy Labaut got his second career start on Saturday night, and things were kind of shaky at the beginning. The redshirt freshman walked the first USC batter, and then gave up an RBI triple to Lars Nootbaar which put the Trojans up 1-0 about five minutes into the game.

But then things settled down a lot, as Labaut only faced 19 hitters over the ensuing 5 ²⁄₃ innings. His final line was an absurd 6 IP, 1 H, 3 BB, 4 K, and the 1 ER.

Cody Deason took over from there and kept the one-hitter in tact.

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Arizona will look for the series sweep on Sunday afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 1 PM PT, and the Wildcats will start Rio Gomez on the mound. USC will counter with Marrick Crouse.

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