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Dirtbags’ struggles continue in loss to Loyola Marymount

LOS ANGELES – The month of March wasn’t kind to the Dirtbags in 2012, and after another loss this year it appears that the trend hasn’t gone away.

Long Beach State (6-11) lost its sixth straight game in a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Loyola Marymount in a road contest Tuesday afternoon. The team is now 1-7 in March.

“I think every coach out there certainly would like to have the how-to book to get a team going in the right direction,” LBSU head coach Troy Buckley said.

The Dirtbags’ bats were as cold against the Lions (7-10) as they were over the weekend, when The Beach was swept by No. 14 Arizona State. LBSU collected just 11 hits in the three-game series with the Sun Devils, and it could only get three hits against LMU.

“I think hitting is really contagious,” Buckley said. “We’re more on the poor contagious side than the good contagious side right now.”

It wasn’t until the fifth inning that the Dirtbags were able to get a hit against the Lions, who had already taken a 3-0 lead at that point. Right fielder Richard Prigatano and catcher Eric Hutting hit back-to-back doubles in the inning to give The Beach its only run of the game.

LMU would tack on an insurance run in the seventh that proved to be meaningless, as the Dirtbags were retired in order each of the final three innings. Prigatano, Hutting and left fielder Ino Patron were the only LBSU players to get a hit in the game.

Buckley said the hitting slump isn’t the result of poor at-bats as much as a lack of consistency.

“The hitting will always come and go,” he said. “It’s just quality at-bats and being able to situational hit that’s important.”

The Dirtbags have a few weeks to get back into the swing of things before Big West Conference play begins. Because of their poor nonconference record to this point, it’s unlikely that they will be able to advance to the NCAA tournament without a conference title. Buckley said if there were a time to have a slump, it would be now.

“You certainly want these challenges and adversity to go through nonconference,” he said. “A loss in conference is like two losses, and your margin for error in that arena is a lot smaller when it comes to winning and losing.”

LBSU will return to Blair Field to try to turn things around when it takes on Wichita State in a three-game series this weekend. The first game is set for 6 p.m. on Friday night.
 

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