College baseball: Pepperdine’s Ahearne, an Orel Hershiser clone, beats USD again, 3-1.

Pepperdine’s Patrick Ahearne has heard all the comments and comparisons. For years--it started when he was a high school freshman in than Albuquerque, N.M.--he has heard them. He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t flinch.

And like the Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser, the man Ahearne is always compared to, Ahearne doesn’t lose much, either.

He was brilliant again Friday afternoon against the University of San Diego, beating the Toreros, 3-1, at Cunningham Stadium to give ninth-ranked Pepperdine (22-9-1, 11-4) a 2 1/2-game cushion over second-place USD (17-16, 9-7) in the West Coast Conference baseball standings.

USD, which has not finished higher than fourth since switching to Division I in 1980, was hoping for a three-game sweep of Pepperdine this weekend. As it is, with a noon doubleheader today, the Toreros will need help from other WCC members if they are to become only the second team other than Pepperdine to win a WCC championship since 1985.

Ahearne, a 6-foot-3 senior right-hander who has never been drafted, saw to it that the Waves stayed on top.

He pitched a three-hitter, retired 10 consecutive batters heading into the ninth inning, struck out nine, including Tony Moeder, the WCC’s leading hitter at .419, with two on in the ninth, improved to 9-1 in 10 starts and lowered his conference-leading earned run average to 1.82.

Ahearne also improved to 4-0 against USD, his other victories being a one-hitter and two-hitter last year and another three-hitter last weekend.

“He’s got great ability,” said USD’s Mike Saipe, who also pitched well but came away with his second consecutive loss against Ahearne. “He’s got a great sinker and good movement on his fastball, just like Hershiser.

“He feeds his defense. His strikeouts come, but he feeds his defense well by keeping the ball down.”

Said Moeder, inducing terrifying thoughts for future Ahearne opponents: “I don’t think he had as good a stuff as he had (last week).”

On a bright note for the Toreros, at least this time they managed to score off Ahearne. Never mind that it was an unearned run, this was progress. USD had a chance Friday, thanks to Saipe and some terrific defense.

Saipe, a freshman right-hander out of University City High, escaped precarious jams in the sixth, seventh and ninth innings. In the sixth, after a leadoff triple to by Steve Rodriguez and a groundout by Matt McElreath, Dan Melendez hit a hard grounder up the middle. Torero second baseman Eric Morten, playing in, dived to his right and managed to divert the ball with his wrist toward shortstop Chad Boyd, who scooped it up, held the runner at third and made the assist at first.

Saipe then struck out cleanup hitter David Main on a fastball on the outside corner to end the inning. Main, however, would come back to haunt Saipe.

The Toreros took a 1-0 lead in the second when Moeder singled up the middle, stole second, went to third on a throwing error by Pepperdine catcher Scott Vollmer and scored on a groundout to first by Charlie Setzler. The Waves made it, 1-1, in the fourth on a solo homer by McElreath, his fourth, and it remained that way until the eighth.

That’s when Main lined a two-run double into the right-center field gap.

“Main’s a big, strong guy,” Saipe said. “I tried to keep it away from him like I did the first time, but I just got it up. You can’t do that to a hitter like him.”

USD got two runners aboard in the ninth with one out, but Ahearne struck out Moeder and got Setzler to tap back to him to end the game.

Ahearne, who wears Hershiser’s No. 55 and even modeled his pitching style after the Dodger star, said he watches videos of Hershiser-pitched games for guidance and inspiration.

“It’s more of a mental thing,” said Ahearne, who has a career record of 44-12, including two seasons at Los Angeles Harbor Community College. “He’s such a tough performer. I can’t think of any other pitcher I would want to be more like.”