Matadors Split to Be Tied : College baseball: Northridge scores 24 runs but can take only one of two from Cal Poly SLO.

You win some, you lose some. Rob Crabtree did both Friday.

So did his teammates.

On a day that personified its mediocre season, Cal State Northridge managed to split a Western Athletic Conference doubleheader with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at Matador Field.

Northridge nearly blew a 14-0 lead in the opener before holding on for an 18-14 victory, then came from ahead to lose the second game, 7-6.

Because of earlier rainouts, Northridge has another doubleheader with Cal Poly today at noon. Ditto on Sunday. The games have been trimmed to seven innings by mutual agreement, since neither team has much pitching.

Case in point: Northridge (20-21, 7-9) scored 24 runs in 14 innings and it wasn’t enough, which made Coach Bill Kernen openly cringe.

“When I think of all the guys who played here in the past, this is really sad,” Kernen said. “It was a pathetic performance.”

Crabtree, the only Northridge pitcher with an earned-run average below 4.50, started the first game . . . and the second. For his efforts, which the Cal Poly radio broadcast crew called “heroic,” he received a victory and a loss.

The opener should have been a snoozer. Jason Shanahan hit three home runs and Jonathan Campbell added two, staking Crabtree to a 14-0 lead. Yet Cal Poly (14-22, 7-10) scored nine runs (four earned) in the fourth off Crabtree, who threw 174 pitches over nine innings in the two games.

“It’s amazing how fast it goes,” Crabtree said of his effectiveness.

Same with the lead.

After Crabtree (6-6) escaped the fourth, Northridge relievers didn’t exactly stem the tide in the fifth. Evan Howland threw three wild pitches in two-thirds of an inning--tying a Northridge record for a game--and the Matadors committed three errors. Before anybody could believe what was happening, Cal Poly scored five times to close within a run.

Reliever Aaron D’Aoust entered with two out and the bases loaded and allowed a two-run single to Bret Mueller as Cal Poly closed to within 15-14. With runners at second and third, Jeff Marsten flied out to end the threat.

“We scored more runs but we didn’t really win that game,” Kernen said.

He has a point. It took a tainted double for Northridge to put it away. With two out and runners at first and second, Josh Smaler lifted a high fly to dead center. Dave Peruzzaro misjudged the ball in the wind and it fell on the warning track to give Northridge a 17-14 lead.

By then, Crabtree was throwing between innings to keep warm for the second game. For the first four innings of the nightcap, he was fairly effective as Northridge took a 5-2 lead. In the bottom of the fifth--Cal Poly was the home team in the second game--the Mustangs put him away for good when five consecutive batters drove in a run.

“I guess since we were designated the visitors, we had to play like we were on the road,” said Kernen, whose team is an unsightly 5-14 away from Matador Field.

The format of the doubleheader may have cost Shanahan a record-breaking day. The senior third baseman from from Montana slammed homers in his first three at-bats in the opener. In his first time up in the second game, Shanahan hit another bomb to give him four in eight innings.

Scott Sharts (1990) and Rondal Rollin (1980) are the only other Matadors who hit three homers in a game. Shanahan, who earlier this season endured a hellish streak in which he failed to get a hit with a runner on base for six games, finished with 10 runs batted in.

The four homers gave Shanahan 10 for the year, a mark also reached by catcher Robert Fick, who homered once in each game.

Alas, when Northridge needed him most, Shanahan didn’t get the chance. After Northridge scored an unearned run in the sixth and pulled to within 7-6 in the second game, Mustang reliever Rob Croxall retired the side in order in the seventh.

Shanahan was the fourth batter of the inning.

“I would have killed for another at-bat at the end,” Shanahan said.

It may have marked the end in more ways that one. Northridge entered the day five games behind first-place Fresno State in the WAC Western Division.

The Matadors needed a sweep of the series to have anything more than a mathematical chance at a conference title and a postseason berth.

“We’re just playing the last three weeks to see what happens,” Kernen said.

Something usually does.