Pepperdine Wins The WCC Baseball Tournament

After a wild few days in Stockton, Pepperdine emerged as the WCC Baseball Tournament champions for the second straight year, beating Loyola Marymount 4-2 in the title game on Saturday. The Waves did their damage with the long ball, scoring 3 of their 4 runs courtesy of solo home runs.

The tournament started off with bang as #4 seed LMU destroyed top seeded San Diego 21-3 in a surprise upset. The Toreros had cruised through the regular season, and claimed most of the top individual conference awards. The #2 seeded Waves then inched past #3 BYU by a score of 8-7 so set up a winner’s bracket game between them and the Lions.

The Lions jumped ahead early and held on for a 4-2 win on Friday, forcing the Waves to play an elimination game against the Toreros who had knocked out BYU earlier in the day. The Waves used a pair of home runs to take a 4-0 lead, and then Ryan Wilson went to work in his first career postseason start to deliver Pepperdine a 4-2 win. It set up a rematch in the title game with the Lions, the second straight season that LMU and Pepperdine would meet in the championship to decide the winner.

The Waves jumped ahead early on a solo home run in the first, and then took a 2-1 lead in the fourth on another solo homer. Later in the game as they hung onto a 3-2 lead, the Waves got their third home run in the 8th to bring the score to it’s 4-2 final score and give the Waves their 2nd straight WCC Tournament title.

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The Waves will find out where they are heading in the NCAA Tournament on Monday during the NCAA Selection Show. Last year they had great success in the postseason, reaching a Super Regional against TCU and nearly reaching the College World Series in the process after pushing the Horned Frogs to a third and final Super Regional game.

As a result, don’t be surprised if the Waves make a run despite their low standing in the RPI. It was a down year for the conference, with no teams in position to receive at-large berths. The winner of the WCC Tournament was the only team that was going to make the postseason, and the talented Waves have a good chance of beating some tournament teams.