CSUN Shakes Off Riverside as Jaquez Homers in Eighth

Rival coaches Jack Smitheran and Terry Craven shook hands twice Friday at Matador Field. Once at the beginning of the game, once at the end.

So much for etiquette. Both agreed that what transpired between the polite formalities was a typical UC Riverside-Cal State Northridge free-for-all.

“Games have always been like that with Riverside,” Craven said after his Matadors defeated the Highlanders, 8-7, with an eighth-inning, two-run homer by designated-hitter Dick Jaquez. “They’re decided by one or two runs and it’s usually a last-inning deal.”

Jaquez, who homered in the first inning and snapped a 6-6 tie with his seventh homer, turned out to be the game’s hero. But winning pitcher Tom Harmon almost made him a footnote.

The senior right-hander was roughed up for four home runs by the Highlanders. Harmon has yielded 14 homers this season--one fewer than Mark Ban has hit for CSUN.

“I don’t think it’s a problem,” Craven said. “The guys who hit the homers have been hitting them all year. I thought he was throwing well--even though he gave up four homers.”

Riverside (4-11, 20-18) wasted no time against Harmon as Dion Noonan tagged a 1-2 pitch over the left-field wall with one out in the first for a 1-0 lead.

CSUN (11-5, 31-16-1) came right back in the bottom of the first to grab a 4-1 lead against Riverside right-hander Frank Potestio. Potestio, who was beaten by a pair of eighth-inning homers in a 3-1 loss to the Matadors at Riverside on March 12, didn’t last this time.

He walked the first two batters, then Ban and Paul Kaplan followed with run-scoring singles. Ban scored the third run on a double play and Dick Jaquez hit his sixth homer to knock Potestio out of the game.

“We might have won it if we had any kind of performance from Potestio,” Smitheran remarked. “The first inning was where the game was won or lost.”

Jaquez, whose eighth-inning homer in the final game of last year’s NCAA Division II World Series secured the championship for CSUN, began the season battling Kaplan for the first base job. Now he is resigned to the DH role.

“Of course I’d like to be out there,” he said, “but I have no complaints. I just want to do whatever it takes to help the team.”

The Highlanders refused to fold after the CSUN barrage and managed to chip away for a run in each of the next four innings to take a 5-4 lead. They made it 4-2 in the second when Steve Sauls homered.

Riverside’s Joe Koh, a sophomore from Northridge, led off the third with a slow bouncer between short and third. Shortstop Matt MacArthur’s hurried throw to first sailed into the visiting bullpen, sending Koh to second. He advanced to third on a fly to right and scored on a ground out to cut CSUN’s lead to 4-3.

The Highlanders pulled even in the fourth when Sauls walked with one out, advanced to third on singles by Brian Rinehart and Rick Cobb, and scored when Harmon walked Koh with two out and the bases loaded.

Harmon (6-3), whose only easy inning was the eighth, retired the first two batters in the fifth. But Patrick Britt doubled and Sauls’ routine grounder to short-hop the edge of the infield grass and bounded over MacArthur’s head to score the go-ahead run.

Northridge tied it, 5-5, when Bryant Long led off the fifth with a bunt single, moved up on a sacrifice and scored on Ban’s third hit of the game. The Matadors regained the lead in the sixth against right-hander Doug Lackpour (1-1) when MacArthur’s sacrifice fly scored Randy Gilmore, who had doubled.

Ty Dabney tied it, 6-6, in the seventh with a leadoff homer, but Kaplan singled to left to open the home eighth and Jaquez blasted the Lackpour’s first pitch over the right-field wall.

“Doug pitched a good game,” Smitheran said. “It was a shame he had to get the ball out over the plate to Jaquez.”