Arnold Victimizes San Diego : College baseball: Center fielder’s four RBIs, diving catch lead to Northridge’s 6-5 victory, Kernen’s 200th.

Finally, Joey Arnold was the perpetrator. Most of the year, he’d been a victim.

Arnold began the week with a batting average of .226 and 27 strikeouts in 84 at-bats.

“I think I hit one ball on the barrel all last weekend,” he said.

He had a barrel of fun on Tuesday. Arnold homered, doubled, drove in four runs and saved another with an acrobatic catch in center field to lead the Matadors to a 6-5 victory over the University of San Diego in a nonconference game at Matador Field.

It was the Matadors’ fourth consecutive victory, their eighth in the past nine, ninth in the past 11.

And it was a milestone victory for Coach Bill Kernen, whose teams are 200-105-3 in his six seasons at Northridge. In other words, Arnold and Kernen both entered the game flirting with the number 200 in one statistical form or the other.

“I was having big problems clearing my head in the batter’s box,” said Arnold, a transfer from Pierce College. “I wasn’t getting my head into it.”

Nor the head of his bat. Things finally started going Arnold’s way in the second inning, when he robbed Josh Stepner of a double with a diving grab in right-center. At least, that was the official ruling.

Catch or no catch?

Arnold wouldn’t answer for the record, but he did drop this not-so-subtle hint: “Don’t want to make the umpires mad.”

Either way, it saved starter Rick Orr (1-1) a run, because Eric Morton followed with a double.

Arnold’s luck held again in the fourth. With none out and runners on first and second, he was called on to lay down a sacrifice bunt with Northridge leading, 1-0. He fouled off two attempts before Chris Collins wild-pitched the runners up a base.

Arnold then doubled to drive in two, and one out later, swiped third on reliever David Russell’s first pitch.

The theft forced San Diego, trailing by three runs, to play with a drawn-in infield and red-hot freshman Eric Gillespie grounded a single into center.

Gillespie had two hits, marking his eighth multiple-hit game in the past nine, and raised his average to a team-high .394. He has 30 RBIs.

Orr, a junior right-hander with a tricky knuckle-curve, was more than holding his own. In fact, Northridge held a 4-0 lead and Orr had allowed two hits through six innings.

Orr committed a balk in the seventh, however, as San Diego (12-11) scored twice to halve the lead.

An unearned run in the eighth cut the margin to 4-3.

Again, Arnold made the difference in the bottom of the eighth, when he slammed a two-run homer--his first--for a 6-3 lead. The Matadors (13-10) needed everything they could get.

San Diego scored twice in the ninth and had the potential tying run on first before Orr retired Stepner on a popup for the final out.

“I had plenty left, I felt,” said Orr, a transfer from Cypress College who recorded his first complete game. “Nobody else felt that.”

Maybe not, but Arnold had definitely experienced the same general feeling lately.

“I was starting to wonder when this (slump) would end,” Arnold said.