LOS ANGELES — USC (2-2) got its second consecutive come-from-behind victory Wednesday night at Dedeaux Field. The Trojans scored runs in the seventh and eighth innings to eek out a 2-1 win over visiting Loyola Marymount (2-2).
After LMU took a 1-0 lead in the top of the seventh when Kevin Garcia scored on a dribbler 10 feet down the third base line, USC responded by manufacturing a run in the seventh inning to score Kevin Swick.
In the eighth inning, the Trojans took advantage of a pair of hard-hit balls Garcia couldn’t come up with at third base to take the lead and the victory.
Neither starting pitcher, Patrick McGrath (6 IP, 6 H, BB, 3 K) for LMU and Brent Wheatley (5 IP, 4 H, 3 BB, 4 K) for USC, allowed a run, leaving the game to be decided by the bullpens. Nigel Nootbaar picked up the win while freshman Kyle Davis picked up his first career save.
Check out the 13-shot photo gallery from Wednesday night’s game:
About Shotgun Spratling
Shotgun Spratling covers the Southern California area where he attended 75 games during the 2012 season.
He attended grad school at USC where he covered USC sports for Neon Tommy, South LA Intersections, Annenberg TV News, KSCR and the Trojan Vision debate show Platforum Sports. He has worked with the Princeton Devil Rays minor league team, written for daily and weekly newspapers and done freelance work for publications such as ESPN, NBC Los Angeles and the SC Playbook magazine.
After being a 3-sport letterman in high school, he was a 4-year letterman at Division III Maryville College where he concluded his collegiate career by inducing a ground out to end the 2007 Great South Athletic Conference Tournament and gave the Scots the GSAC championship.
He also spent the 2010 summer in Cape Town, South Africa covering sports for the Cape Community Papers during the first FIFA World Cup held on African soil.
