Junior Darren McCaughan threw his second complete game of the season as the No. 12 Long Beach State Dirtbags won their 10th straight game at home beating Cal State Northridge, 6-2 Thursday night.
During an already uncommon Thursday night game at Blair Field, both managers were ejected in back-to-back innings after home plate umpire Carl Coles tossed CSUN head coach Greg Moore in the top of the second for hanging around too long to argue about one of his hitters being hit by a pitch and LBSU head coach Troy Buckley for disputing about an interference call that ended the bottom of the third. Nevertheless, the Dirtbags were not distracted by the extra excitement.
“There was a lot of hoopla there in the third with both ejections,” hitting coach Greg Bergeron said after taking over for Buckley. “If something like that happens we have to move on and get back into the flow of the game and I thought we did a good job of that.”
The Dirtbags (21-11, 6-1) opened the scoring in the bottom of the second inning on a wild play as junior center fielder Domenic Colacchio struck out with runners at the corners and no outs. Junior catcher David Banuelos was thrown out at second on the dropped third strike pitch and junior third baseman Ramsey Romano narrowly avoided a triple play, sliding in head first safely at home.
LBSU’s junior shortstop Laine Huffman, made some noise in his next at-bat with a solo home run that stayed just inside the left field foul pole. It was Huffman’s second home run of the season and in back-to-back weekends.
“I just have a lot more of an aggressive approach at the plate which is something I kind of got away from earlier in the season,” Huffman said.
Huffman finished the game 2 for 2 with a walk and two RBIs and hit a stand up RBI triple in the bottom of the eighth on a fly ball that was just short of another home run.
“I slowed up a little bit when I was running around second because I couldn’t really find the ball but then saw it hit the wall and had to bust it to third,” Huffman said.
McCaughan ran into his first sign of trouble during the top of the third inning as CSUN (16-19, 3-4) scored twice on three hits, a hit batter with the bases loaded and a sacrifice fly from junior designated hitter Albee Weiss.
That was the only blip on McCaughan’s radar in the game as he retired the last 17 CSUN batters he faced (the last 13 batters by strikeout and groundball) in a game he would go the distance in. He finished with six strikeouts and and impressive 28 out of 32 first pitch strikes.
“I felt like I had my fastball tonight but hadn’t thrown a changeup through the first three innings,” McCaughan said. “I told [coach Ricabal] ‘We have to start throwing the changeup’ and that was the difference in the rest of the game.”
McCaughan retired the last 21 batters in a row against Pepperdine on March 18 in a complete game performance as well and talked about what it’s like to be in that kind of a groove.
“The ball is just coming out right,” McCaughan said. “You’re not really thinking about anything else but pounding the ball down. When you’re rolling like that the ball is going wherever you want it to go and it’s easy to command you’re pitches.”
LBSU’s junior left fielder managed to stay on his recent hot streak at the plate going 2 for 4 with an RBI including a double in the bottom of the third to give the Dirtbags a 3-2 lead.
Junior center fielder Domenic Colacchio has been the recent patroller in center field and was 2 for 3 with a walk and an RBI in the game.
LBSU had 13 hits in the game and has continued to show that they are collectively locked in at the plate.
“They have a good plan for the most part,” Bergeron said. “We talk about each starting pitcher we’re going to see and they did a good job with the approach we have tonight.”
LBSU will start junior John Sheaks (4-1, 3.38 ERA), who will be looking to win his fourth straight start, against Sam Meyers (2-4, 4.31 ERA) of CSUN. First pitch of game two is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Blair Field.