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Baseball: Cats to battle Trojans for television audience


Photo
JOSH FIELDS/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Sophomore shortstop Jason Donald waits for a pitch during Arizona's April 17 game against Oregon State. Donald and the Wildcats host USC this weekend at Sancet Stadium.
By Michael Schwartz
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Friday, April 29, 2005
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Lights, camera, baseball.

Coming off their worst weekend of the season, the No. 9 Arizona baseball team hosts No. 22 Southern California for a three-game series this weekend at Sancet Stadium with all three games being shown on national television.

The teams battle tonight at 7 on ESPNU, ESPN's new college sports channel, tomorrow at 1 p.m. on FSNA and taped delayed on FSN nationally, and Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on ESPN.

This follows a weekend in which the Wildcats (27-14, 10-2 Pacific 10 Conference) suffered their first three-game losing streak and winless weekend of the year after losing twice to UC Irvine and once at Sacramento State.

This series marks the first television exposure for Arizona this season, with two more broadcasts scheduled in the regular season after the Trojans (26-13, 8-4) leave town.

With their super-regional games at Long Beach State and the College World Series games televised by the ESPN networks last season, the atmosphere shouldn't be anything new to a veteran-laden squad.

Arizona head coach Andy Lopez said he does not expect the added exposure to hurt his team.

"They were in the College World Series, most of them last year, and that's about as big as it can get," he said. "I would be very sad and disappointed if it did (hurt the team). It should juice them up. That's what you want to do as a college athlete."

Sophomore shortstop Jason Donald said he's very excited for the weekend's games.

"I think that's a good way to represent our program," he said. "A lot of people around the country get to see what Arizona baseball is about. Everyone on our team is very excited any time we get to play in front of a national audience.

"It's definitely exciting, and no added pressure or anything," he said. "We just need to go out and play the game well."

Junior left fielder Trevor Crowe, whose conference-leading skills will be on display, said he also looks forward to the television games.

"Any time you're on TV that's an added bonus because family and friends get to see you play, (and) also other guys that you've played with from around the country," he said.

The television audience gets another pitching duel tonight when junior ace John Meloan (7-0, 3.30 ERA) takes the mound against Ian Kennedy (7-1, 2.84).

Kennedy ranks fifth in the conference in ERA, as Meloan is eighth.

Kennedy has struck out a second-best 94 batters, with Meloan following in fourth with 90. Both trail Arizona junior Kevin Guyette, who has 98 punchouts.

Having outdueled No. 2 Cal State Fullerton's Ricky Romero and No. 6 Oregon State's Dallas Buck and suffered a no-decision team loss to No. 1 Texas and ace Randy Boone, another tough matchup will be nothing new to Meloan.

"(The Trojans) have three good guys, and we've got three good guys, so it should be a good one," Lopez said. "There's been a few times John's had to matchup. That's what a Friday night guy has to be."

Tomorrow Guyette (6-4, 3.96) looks to bounce back from two subpar starts in which he failed to go five innings and the team lost. Before then, Guyette had thrown consecutive complete games.

Freshman David Coulon (2-2, 5.09) gets the Sunday start looking for his first win since March 16 against UNLV.

They face a Trojan offense led in every aspect by catcher Jeff Clement.

Clement, a candidate for the Johnny Bench Award, given to the nation's top catcher, leads the team with a .354 batting average, 10 home runs and 33 RBIs.

Only two other USC regulars hit .300 and have 20 RBIs, and nobody else has hit more than three home runs for an offense second to last in the conference (5.7 runs per contest).

The Trojans make up for it with the Pac-10's second-best team ERA (3.50), buoyed by Kennedy.

The Wildcats enter the series after a defensively porous weekend in which they committed more errors (nine) than scored runs (eight).

"Everyone on our team will tell you that you need to come out ready to play, and if you play like that you don't deserve to win," Donald said.

Donald said he doesn't think this should become a recurring problem for a defense that commits 1.2 errors per game.

"It was just one of those weekends," he said. "We can't get it back, and we just have to go back to what we have been doing, playing good, concrete catch, getting the lead out and not trying to do anything too spectacular."

This weekend will also go a long way to determine the conference champion, with the Trojans two games behind.

The Beavers host No. 17 ASU this weekend, with both teams just one game behind Arizona for first place.

This means that the Wildcats could fall into a tie for third place with another weekend like the last one in the competitive Pac-10.

With a national audience and a ranked team coming to town, Arizona needs to return to form if it hopes to keep its conference lead.

"At this time of year there really are no secrets," Lopez said. "That's what's going to happen if we play poorly. This club has played well for the whole year, so I'm honestly not concerned. I'm just happy to be back home and looking forward to a weekend in the Pac-10."



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