USC’s Jack Basseer is tagged out by ORE ST catcher Wilson Weber after striking out during the Trojans’ 9-0 loss in the NCAA Corvallis Regional final on Monday. (Shotgun Spratling / For The Times)Shotgun Spratling (LA Times) — CORVALLIS, Ore. — There’s levels to a proper program build. Baby steps have to sometimes be taken, even if everyone involved would like to jump past several of those. Lessons have to be learned. Experiences, both positive and negative, have to be endured.
USC suffered through one of those difficult experiences, getting manhandled by national championship contender Oregon State for the second day in a row in the Corvallis Regional final. The No. 8 national seed shut down USC’s offensive attack in the winner-take-all regional final, eliminating the Trojans from the NCAA tournament with a 9-0 victory.
“Frustrating finish for sure,” USC coach Andy Stankiewicz said after being outscored 23-1 in back-to-back losses to the Beavers. “Proud of our boys and our coaching staff. Proud to wear this jersey. We’ve gotten better. Obviously, this weekend shows us that we’ve got to get better and be more competitive.”
Oregon State freshman James DeCremer, making just his second start of the season, held USC (37-23) to two hits in five scoreless innings. Then sophomore Eric Segura, who was pulled in the first inning of his start Friday after getting knocked around by Saint Mary’s, fired three scoreless innings.
Sophomore Laif Palmer entered after just USC’s third hit of the game. He induced the fifth double play of the day and got another groundout to close out the game. All three Oregon State pitchers fired mid-90s fastballs, something rare among USC pitchers and too much for the Trojan hitters to handle.
“We had a hard time controlling their arms,” Stankiewicz said. “The fastball was pretty hot.”
The Trojans struck out 27 times in the two games against the Beavers. Ethan Hedges, their most developed hitter, reached base five times in nine plate appearances, but he was the lone USC player to have success.
The Trojans couldn’t control Oregon State’s arms or its fearsome heart of the lineup as three of the Beavers four big boppers — Aiva Arquette, Gavin Turley and Trent Caraway — hit home runs.
USC shortstop Bryce Martin-Grudzielanek holds on to the ball to force out a runner at second base on Monday. (Shotgun Spratling / For The Times)
Turley got the Beavers (45-13-1) on the board with a run-scoring single in the first inning. Arquette expanded Oregon State’s lead to 3-0, hitting a 414-foot homer into the left-center field bleachers for his 18th home run of the season, but first in front of the Goss Stadium home fans. Turley then hit a solo home run that traveled 418 feet and left his bat at 110 mph.
Caraway hit a parabolic solo home run to left field in the fifth for his fifth home run in as many Corvallis Regional games, helping him earn Most Outstanding Player honors for the regional. And Jacob Krieg, batting in the nine hole as he’s struggled to be a consistent impact bat, put the finishing touches on the beatdown with a three-run homer in the eighth.
The Trojans saw the level they need to reach, a level they aren’t at yet.
“Coming here and competing in this environment, it’s a good thing. It’s all good steps. It’s all part of the process,” Stankiewicz said. “I think sometimes people get impatient. We want everything to happen now, and certainly I’d love to be going to a super regional. Didn’t happen, but it’s going to happen, and we’re just going to keep moving in the right direction, and we’re going to stay on it and keep competing and keep working to get our program to where we’re moving past the regional and in my heart, I believe that’s going to happen.
“This is part of the step. So this was a good thing, frustrating as it is, the way it ended. In the big picture, it’s a positive.”
Stankiewicz could look all around him at Goss Stadium and see what those steps have created. Twenty years ago, it was Oregon State making those moves. The Beavers knocked off USC in a 2005 super regional matchup that marked an unofficial changing of the guard on the West Coast.
The Beavers advanced to the College World Series for the first time in more than half a century then. A year later, they celebrated the first of what eventually became three national championships (2006, 2007, 2018), taking over as the pre-eminent West Coast program. USC, which long held that banner with an NCAA-best 12 national titles, was left wandering in the wilderness.
The Trojans have toiled in mediocrity the last two decades, fighting to notch a winning record rather than battling for postseason glory. Under the leadership of five different coaches, they had just two winning (full) seasons and one postseason appearance from 2006-2022.
But in three years, Stankiewicz and his staff have revived USC’s baseball program. They have had three straight 30-plus win seasons for the first time since Mike Gillespie eclipsed the mark in 15 of his first 16 seasons as coach beginning in 1987. They’ve finished fourth in conference each season.
And after two years of getting to the precipice of the postseason promised land only to fall a win short as one of the final at-large teams to miss the NCAA tournament in 2023 and then losing the lead and automatic bid late in the 2024 Pac-12 tournament championship, the Trojans fell just a win shy of super regionals.
USC is taking the steps. Now it has to continue to bring in better players. The only program to have had a player selected every year in the MLB draft, the Trojans haven’t produced a first-round pick since Grant Green in 2009. They’ll have a crown jewel to sell on the recruiting trail as they open up new Dedeaux Field next season.
“We’re getting better and better,” sophomore second baseman Abbrie Covarrubias said. “We’ve got the right group of guys to do great things and the right coaching staff, and we truly believe that as long as we trust our coaches and trust our plans, that we’re going to continue to get better and better and get where SC needs to be.”
latimes.com
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Didn’t know he had any eligibility left, but hate to see Aoki go. He was our ace, and will be missed. Hopefully we can fill some needs for next season in the portal ourselves.
Let’s face it. Big loss. These surprise portal defections blow me away.
He looked very good from what I saw in the playoffs, even though ORE ST was a much better team.
He’s got a year because he received an additional year of eligibility.
Not taking away the rebuild we’ve seen these past 2-3 years, but the domination the team suffered these past two games was hard to swallow. The HS baseball talent in SoCal is 2nd to none. Is Stankie still the right HC here to find the players needed to eliminate the remaining gap? Where the program is and where it needs to be….. is in his hands & control.
College baseball has to be the most difficult to recruit. Not only do you compete with other schools, you have to compete with MLB draft. 2.4% of HS players will go on to play D1. But MLB will draft .5% of the top HS players. I wonder if NIL can compete with a minor league contract? AAA pay seems to range from $17K – $35K, plus offseason pay and housing.
You’re right GT. And that means the development of players going into college ball is crucial.
Andy and Jen need to scout the rest of the tournament, use some NIL to entice some guys into the portal. Shouldn’t be any shortage of USC baseball alums willing to help.
Tough loss last night, but the outlook for next season is bright. The “new” Dedeaux Field should be ready for next baseball season. I attended the inaugural game for the opening of Dedeaux Field in 1974. Trojan hurler Russ McQueen threw a no hitter vs Cal!