COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The USC baseball team won its fourth game in three days to extend its season, advancing to an NCAA super regional for the first time since 2005.
Augie Lopez drove in five runs, three of them on a seventh-inning homer, and four USC pitchers combined to stifle Texas A&M in a 7-1 victory on Monday night as the Trojans won the College Station Regional and advanced to a best-of-three super regional against No. 5 seed North Carolina that will begin later this week. The winner of that will secure a spot in the eight-team College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
The 12th-seeded Aggies (41-16) grabbed an early lead Monday on a Bear Harrison solo home run in the bottom of the third inning, but USC (47-16) took the lead for good on RBI singles by Abbrie Covarrubias and Lopez in the fifth.
Lopez gave the USC pitchers some breathing room when he launched a three-run homer to right field in the seventh for a 5-1 lead.
Until Lopez’s blast, Texas A&M right-hander Clayton Freshcorn had mostly limited a USC offense that had scored 48 runs while winning three straight elimination games, including 14 against the Aggies on Sunday night.
The Trojans tacked on two more insurance runs in the eighth. Adrian Lopez fielder’s choice scored Dean Carpentier, then Augie Lopez capped his night with a sacrifice fly to score Walter Urbon.
Pitching on two days of rest, sophomore right-hander Grant Govel allowed one run on three hits through the first four innings for the Trojans, throwing 64 pitches on the heels of an 89-pitch outing on Friday. Chase Herrell followed him with 3⅔ scoreless innings, before left-hander Sax Matson came on with two runners on to get the final out of the eighth, then Adam Troy took care of the ninth to close out the win.
USC dropped its regional opener to Texas State on Friday before bouncing back with a win against Lamar University in an elimination game on Saturday. The Trojans then avenged their loss to Texas State on Sunday before beating Texas A&M for the first time on Sunday night, setting up the winner-take-all rematch with the Aggies.
UNC (48-11-1) finished second in the Atlantic Coast Conference behind Georgia Tech in the regular season and lost to the Yellow Jackets in the ACC Tournament final as well. The Tar Heels went 3-0 to win their four-team regional, beating VCU in their opener, 8-0, before beating East Carolina twice (7-5 and 9-3).
The days and start times for the super regional games will be announced on Tuesday.