Final 2015 Homestand Begins With San Diego

May 11, 2015

Long Beach State Game Notes

Mother's Day/Breast Cancer Awareness Tuesday, May 12
San Diego at Long Beach State
Time: 6 p.m.
Location: Blair Field
Listen | Gametracker

THE MATCHUP

The final homestand of the 2015 season begins on Tuesday as Long Beach State takes on San Diego at Blair Field. First pitch against the Toreros is scheduled for 6 p.m.
USD comes into the contest as the West Coast Conference regular season champions. The Toreros clinched the title last weekend with a win over Pepperdine.
San Diego won the first meeting 6-1 in San Diego, Calif. behind a three RBI day from Bryson Brigman.
Long Beach State leads the all-time series 40-34.

FINAL HOMESTAND

After its final midweek game against San Diego, Long Beach State will stay at Blair Field for a three-game Big West series with UC Davis.
This week brings the final four Dirtbags games at Blair Field for 2015 as the season finishes up at Fullerton May 21-23.

POWER SWINGS

Long Beach State found its power stroke last week with 10 home runs in four games on the road. The Dirtbags smacked at least one in every game last week, including three at UNLV on Tuesday as well as at Indiana on Friday and Sunday.
The 10 home runs hit in the last four games total more than the Dirtbags' team total from 2012 and 2014, as well as equaling the team total from 2011.
In the first 42 games of the season, Long Beach State launched seven home runs but more than doubled their season total on last week's road trip.
Seven of their 10 homers came in the series at Indiana with Eric Hutting launching three in the series.

PROVIDING THE INSTANT OFFENSE

Four players combined to hit all 10 home runs this week for the Dirtbags. Alex DeGoti hit his first career home run on Tuesday at UNLV with a solo shot to left field. Luke Rasmussen, Brock Lundquist and Eric Hutting all hit three to provide the power.
Lundquist also launch his first career round-tripper at UNLV but went on to hit two more on Saturday and Sunday.
Rasmussen took over the team lead with three homers last week, running his season total to five in 2015.
He hit a pair of solo homers during the Dirtbags Friday night blowout of Indiana and hit the latter end of back-to-back homers at UNLV.
Hutting's first home run was a grand slam that helped the Dirtbags to an eight-spot in the fourth inning on Friday and went deep in back-to-back at bats on Sunday to help the Dirtbags stay momentarily out in front.
Lundquist, Hutting and Rasmussen each had enough home runs (3) in four games last week to lead the team in 2012 and tie for the team lead in 2011, 2013 and 2014.

HUTTING SLAM

Eric Hutting was without a home run as a Dirtbag until hitting a grand slam at Arizona State on March 6. His second career home run was also a grand slam that he launched on Friday at Indiana.
He became the first Dirtbag to hit two grand slams in a season since Jeff Jones in 2001.
The last time the Dirtbags had multiple grand slams in a single season was 2008 when Shane Peterson, Jason Corder and Danny Espinosa all launched a slam.

MIDWEEK HOME GAMES

Long Beach State comes into Tuesday's game with a bit of a win streak during the midweek at Blair.
The Dirtbags are 4-2 overall in midweek home games and have won the last three straight.
The last two midweek games at Blair Field were barnburners with both games being decided by a single run. The Dirtbags defeated UNLV 5-4 on Mar. 31 and then-No. 2 UCLA 2-1 in 13 innings on Apr. 28.

WINNING TRADITION

Head coach Troy Buckley has not finished below .500 in his four previous years at the Beach and is closing in on another winning season.
Two more wins clinches a .500 record with a third, capturing another winning season.
A hot streak to end the season could get the Dirtbags to 30 wins for the second year in a row. Long Beach State hasn't had back-to-back 30-win seasons since 2007-08.
The Dirtbags need to win just five of their remaining seven games to get to 30 wins.

MERCADEL IN THE MIDWEEK

Freshman Tristan Mercadel is one of four freshmen who have emerged as an everyday player for the Dirtbags at the end of the year.
In midweek contests, Mercadel leads the team with a .370 batting average.
He has 10 hits with one going for a double and has scored three times.

FRESHMEN COMBINE FOR HISTORIC NO-HITTER

March 1, 2015 will be a date forever remembered in the Dirtbags history book as the first no-hitter in school history. Freshmen Chris Mathewson and Darren McCaughan combined for the historic feat with Mathewson throwing the first seven innings and McCaughan tossing the last two. The Dirtbags defeated Wichita State 4-0 in the Sunday afternoon game at Blair Field.

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