University Southern California Trojans
USC
Virginia Tech
Baseball Wins First Game of Regional
May 26, 2000 | Baseball
May 26, 2000
FULLERTON, Calif. - Alberto Concepcion and Seth Davidson both homered to lead the No. 1 seeded USC Trojans over the No. 4 seeded Virginia Tech Hokies, 8-3, in Game 1 action of the 2000 NCAA First-Round Regional at Goodwin Field. Rik Currier got off to a rocky start, but rallied back to go eight innings to improve to 13-3 on the season. With the win, the Trojans have won 11 straight and will face the winner of tonight's Cal State Fullerton-Loyola Marymount game on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. (Pacific time).
The Hokies jumped on Currier in the first inning. Chad Foutz led off with a walk and went to third on a double to right by Addison Bowman. Chris Hutchison grounded out to first to push across Foutz for the first run. Jed English hit a sacrifice fly to right as Bowman scored on a close play at home. With runners on first and second with no outs in the top of the second, Currier got out of a jam by picking off Nick Perlozzo at second. Currier then struck out Foutz and got Bowman to foul out to catcher Beau Craig to end the threat.
In the bottom of the second with one out, Josh Persell walked to bring up Concepcion. Concepcion tied the game at 2-2 with his seventh home run of the season to center field. It was Concepcion's third home run in his last four games.
An RBI sacrifice fly by Anthony Lunetta in the third made it a 4-2 USC lead. In the fourth, Davidson, who batted from the left side of the plate, hit a two-run homer to right to give the Trojans a 6-2 lead.
Kevin Bice hit his fourth homer of the season for the Hokies in the sixth to cut the lead to three, but the Trojans came back with a run in the seventh and in the eighth. Tim Petke closed out the game for the Trojans in the ninth.
Currier at one point allowed just two hits in 4 and 1/3 innings. He allowed three runs on seven hits and struck out seven. With his seventh strikeout, Currier surpassed Randy Flores and is now third on USC's all-time list with 317 career strikeouts.
The Trojans were aggressive on the basepaths with a season-high six stolen bases with Brian Barre getting two. Davidson recorded his 23rd stolen base of the season and needs just three to tie the school season record of 26, held by Aaron Boone (1994).
Tomorrow's game can be heard live on www.usctrojans.com
Virginia Tech 200 001 000 - 3-8-2
USC 031 200 11x - 8-15-0
WP - Currier (13-3) LP - Bush (9-6) Bush, Bandy (4) and Bice. Currier, Petke (9) and Craig. T - 2:49 ATT - 1,788
###
