Absence of hype doesn’t diminish rivalry

  EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior Kevin
Jerkens and the Bruins play the Trojans three times this
weekend at Jackie Robinson Stadium.

By Scott Bair
Daily Bruin Reporter

Fans attending last year’s annual non-conference series
between USC and UCLA could not find a seat in the middle section of
the Jackie Robinson Stadium bleachers.

Instead of fans, the middle section housed a mob of major league
scouts, sitting shoulder to shoulder like sardines in a can. They
mechanically raised their radar guns in unison with every
pitch.

The scouts were salivating over USC’s Mark Prior and
UCLA’s Josh Karp, two of the nation’s best college
pitchers who were taken second and eighth respectively in the major
league baseball draft.

This year, fans should have free reign at those prized middle
seats.

Taking the mound tonight are Bruin sophomore Chris Cordeiro and
Trojan freshman Matt Chico, which doesn’t draw quite the same
level of attention as a Karp-Prior matchup.

This weekend’s series will be different than it appeared
on paper at the beginning of the season.

USC began the season as the No.4 team in the country, but has
fallen to No. 18 since being swept last weekend by Baylor to drop
to 2-5.

USC coach Mike Gillespie described his team’s recent play
as “awful.”

“Our freshman pitchers are pitching like freshmen. They
need to throw better strikes, and they’re not doing
that,” he said. “So far this season, the only thing
more disappointing than the pitching has been the
hitting.”

The un-Trojan-like bats are hitting an anemic .282 this season
with only two home runs.

The USC hitters will match up against a tough starting Bruin
trio that has a combined 2.53 ERA.

The Bruin hitters have been driving in much more than three runs
per game lately, but will be seeing a new level of talent this
season.

“We have to play better baseball than have been if
we’re going to beat USC,” UCLA head coach Gary Adams
said. “We need to execute on defense, and manufacture runs by
making better outs on offense.”

Both teams enter Friday’s contest with three-game losing
streaks and both coaches are hoping to use the crosstown rivalry to
get their players back on the winning track.

“Whenever USC and UCLA match up, there is always a sense
of urgency to the series,” Gillespie said. “I’m
sure that both teams will be at their best.”

The weekend series won’t be surrounded by the same type of
hype that Karp and Prior brought, but the games themselves will
have more import.

“This year’s game will be different than last
year’s, but both teams want the same thing,” Cordeiro
said. “Plain and simple ““ we want to beat
USC.”

Although the hype is different, the stakes are still the same.
Only one team will leave the field on Sunday as the best college
baseball team in Los Angeles.