Nootbaar leads USC to 4-3 victory over UCLA
Lars Nootbaar made a change by staying the same. It led to an extra-innings RBI double to push USC to a 4-3 win over UCLA in the Dodger Stadium College Baseball Classic on Sunday evening.
Normally when a pitcher gets two strikes against Nootbaar, the USC cleanup hitter will spread out his stance, cut down the intensity of his swing and all but eliminate his leg kick. But after UCLA reliever Scott Burke pushed the count to 2-2 with two outs in top of the the 10th inning, Nootbaar eschewed his normal contact-driven two-strike approach and stuck with his power stroke.
“I didn’t make a twostrike adjustment because I felt comfortable in that situation,” Nootbaar said after having seen Burke’s fastball and slider earlier in the atbat. “I was seeing the ball well, so I stayed with my approach.”
Burke left a thigh-high slider over the inside half of the plate. Nootbaar turned on the pitch and watched his line drive fly over the first baseman. John Thomas, who reached on an error, tore around the bases as the ball bounded into the rightfield corner. A wide cutoff throw allowed him to score with ease.
Nootbaar also had a tworun triple in the sixth inning against Bruins starter Jon Olson, who struck out eight and gave up only one hit in the first five innings.
“That was a huge win for us in a lot of respects. We were struggling the last couple days,” USC Coach Dan Hobbs said after his team improved to 7-4. “Lars is a guy that we’re expecting to be a dude for us and he was exactly that today.”
It was a disappointing loss for UCLA (5-5) after leading 3-0 through five innings. The Bruins scored in three consecutive innings to take the early lead, highlighted by freshman second baseman Chase Strumpf’s solo home run in the second.
USC starter Marrick Crouse struggled with his control, walking four and hitting another batter in 32⁄3 innings, but UCLA left five runners in scoring position in the first four innings.
“[Crouse] was there to be had, but we couldn’t knock the door down,” UCLA Coach John Savage said. “We didn’t have those big atbats. Nootbaar had the big punches thrown and we didn’t have anybody that really did that.”
Both the Trojans and the Bruins finished the fourteam tournament with a 1-2 record. Michigan defeated San Diego, 3-1, earlier in the day to give both teams a 2-1 record.