Grand slam puts USC baseball one win from College World Series
Their bats had come alive plenty over the last week.Nineteen runs against Lamar.Fifteen against Texas State.
A combined 21 during back-to-back victories over Texas A&M.Never had the USC Trojans’ offense faced a challenge like this.Going quietly through the first five innings, their team trailing by four runs against an opponent that had not lost a game this season while holding a multi-run lead, it appeared as if the magic ride might end against North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament.Then came a sixth inning that topped anything that had come before it.Nine players stepped to the plate.Six reached base.And with one swing, Dean Carpentier etched his name into USC baseball lore.Carpentier’s grand slam sparked the Trojans’ offense during a 9-5 come-from-behind victory over the Tar Heels in a Super Regional on Friday in Chapel Hill, N.C.The decisive inning started with three consecutive singles off North Carolina starter Ryan Lynch, including Kevin Takeuchi’s run-scoring bloop single that fell inside the left-field line.Lynch retired the next two batters before the Tar Heels turned to hard-throwing reliever Walker McDuffie, who walked Andrew Lamb on a full count to load the bases.That brought up Carpentier, who hammered an 0-and-1 slider onto the roof of a building beyond the left-field wall to give the Trojans (48-16) a 6-5 lead.
They added three runs in the seventh to put themselves one victory away from their first College World Series appearance since 2001.By scoring the game’s final eight runs, USC wiped away a rare clunker of a start by ace Mason Edwards.In his shortest outing of the season, the left-hander gave up four runs in three innings before the bullpen allowed just one run over the final six innings.In its first Super Regional appearance since 2005, USC provided a reminder of the postseason power of the most decorated program in college baseball history.The Trojans have won a record 12 College World Series titles and are now on the verge of...