NCAA BASEBALL TOURNAMENT : USC Too Tough for Houston

Bret Boone hit his third homer in two games, John Jackson drove in five runs and Murph Proctor and Mark Smith each drove in four as USC continued its torrid hitting to rout Houston, 26-11, Friday night in the second round of the South I Regional at Baton Rouge, La.

The Trojans (39-20), who have scored 49 runs in two tournament games, will meet Louisiana State (49-16) today in a battle of unbeaten teams. LSU beat Georgia Tech, 5-2.

USC, which had 23 hits in Thursday’s 23-5 victory over Southern Mississippi, had 27 against the Cougars. Damon Buford had five and Proctor and Boone each had four. Boone also had four hits Thursday.

Washington State 13, Loyola Marymount 2--Rob Nichols had three hits and three runs batted in while Darrin Kitchen, Eric Wulf and Scott Smith hit home runs as the Pacific 10 Northern Division champion Cougars used a 19-hit attack to rout the Lions in the first round of the West II Regional Friday at Tempe, Ariz.

Kitchen hit a two-run homer, his 10th of the season, in the second inning before Wulf followed with another homer to give Washington State a 3-0 lead.

The Cougars (47-17) chased Lion starter Jon Willard (13-4) with a three-run rally in the third inning. Willard, a junior right-hander, gave up seven hits and six runs (five earned) in 2 1/3 innings.

Smith’s two-run homer put the Cougars ahead, 12-1, in the sixth inning.

“They put the ball in play so hard,” Loyola Coach Chris Smith said. “They’re as good as you can get. When somebody plays that well, it’s tough to win.

“These kind of days can happen to anybody. It’s just unfortunate that it had to happen in the NCAAs. . . We’re a good club, but some people may not know it.”

Loyola (45-16), the West Coast Conference champion, will play Pacific 10 Southern Division runner-up Arizona State (50-14) today at 3:30 p.m. The Sun Devils beat Pennsylvania, 12-1.

South Alabama 6, UCLA 4--The Bruins couldn’t overcome a strong pitching performance by Mike Zimmerman in the first round of the Midwest Regional at Wichita, Kan.

Zimmerman gave up eight hits, but he struck out 13 and went the distance to raise his record to 12-6. UCLA (39-25) starter Tim Lindsay, meanwhile, gave up nine hits and six runs (all earned) in 6 2/3 innings.

Jaguar first baseman Robby Robertson keyed a four-run first inning with a two-run homer. He also stole home as part of a double-steal in the seventh inning when South Alabama (42-18) broke a 4-4 tie.

Oklahoma State 7, UC Santa Barbara 2--Dennis Burbank, who pitched at Pepperdine in 1988 and at Cypress College last season, restricted the Gauchos (40-21) to seven hits in another first-round game at the West II Regional.

Michel Simons had a run-scoring double in the second inning and hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning to lead the Cowboys.

After giving up a leadoff single to Jerrold Rountree, Burbank (9-1) picked off Rountree. He then retired the next 12 batters before yielding a single to Nick Satriano in the fifth inning.

Stanford 6, Middle Tennessee State 1--Mike Mussina and Scott Weiss combined to pitch a five-hitter as the Pacific 10 Southern Division champion Cardinal (54-10) remained unbeaten in the West I Regional at Stanford.

Ryan Turner’s bases-loaded triple off reliever Rob Angell highlighted a four-run eighth-inning that broke open what had been a pitching battle between Mussina and Tom Wegmann.

Mussina (13-3) gave up four hits over the first eight innnings and retired 19 of 20 batters at one point. Wegman (7-2) pitched 7 2/3 innings, striking out nine while yielding four hits.

Cal State Fullerton 16, Old Dominion 3--Rich Gonzales hit a grand slam and the Titans took advantage of four first-inning errors to beat the Monarchs in the first round of the Central Regional at Austin, Tex.

Fullerton (32-21) used four hits and the four infield errors to score seven runs in the bottom of the first inning. The Titans got one more in the second when Gonzales doubled, took third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch. They got six more runs in the fifth, four on Gonzales’ slam.