On a nice Sunday afternoon USC faced off against UCLA in the first of four games between the two squads. Southern California sent Kevin Coutore to the mound who went seven innings the week previous against Cal Poly where he had a no-decision. UCLA countered with Rob Rasmussen who also had no record after pitching 3.2 innings against Cal-State Northridge giving up four runs.
USC starting pitcher Kevin Couture was knocked out of the game on a Steve Rodriguez line drive in the 2nd inning, and was replaced by Ben Mount (L, 0-1), who was credited with the loss after taking the Trojans all the way into the 7th.
Neither team was able to get on the board until the 5th inning when USC coach’s son Cade Kreuter doubled to left, followed by a Mike O’Neill double to left center. Rasmussen was lifted after a 2-out walk, and Erik Goeddel (W, 2-0) came in and struck out cleanup hitter Matt Foal to end the 5th. Rasmussen was effective in his 4.2 innings, giving up 5 hits and striking out 6, leaving with a no-decision.
The College Baseball Blog will be running a Live Chat on February 28th at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific time. The chat will run at least an hour but could go on for a few hours depending on the participation from our readers. We will discuss the weekend of college baseball action and take questions. If you can’t make it please send in your questions early by clicking 
