COLLEGE STATION, Texas — On a night when the crowd at Blue Bell Park saw some of the most majestic home runs you’ll see in college baseball, USC’s Andrew Johnson showed why pitching is still paramount Sunday.
The sophomore right-hander delivered arguably the most important pitching performance of the year for USC, beating Texas A&M 14-3 to propel the Trojans to a winner-take-all College Station Regional Final on Monday.
After needing five pitchers in a rout over Texas State earlier in the day just to reach the regional final out of the losers’ bracket, USC coach Andy Stankiewicz rode Johnson on Sunday night.
Two nights after throwing 21 pitches over 1⅔ innings, Johnson threw 124 pitches over 7⅓ strong innings to beat the host Aggies before a crowd of 6,934.
Leading 11-2, Johnson retired the first batter in the top of the eighth inning before Nico Partida singled to right. Jake Duer followed with an RBI triple to right field, prompting a call to right-hander Rohan Kasanagottu.
Johnson (8-2) held the Aggies to three runs on nine hits and two home runs with one walk and four strikeouts.
The Trojans have scored 48 runs over three wins since falling into the losers’ bracket. They beat Lamar 19-6 on Saturday, and then they beat Texas State 15-4 on Sunday afternoon to advance to face the Aggies.
Chris Hacopian gave the Aggies a 1-0 lead with a home run in the first. The Trojans countered with four runs in the bottom of the inning with Kevin Takeuchi’s two-run single and Andrew Lamb’s two-run double.
Lamb greeted reliever Cooper Powell with a three-run home run over the right field bleachers in the third inning. Augie Lopez gave USC a 9-1 lead with a two-run home run in the fourth inning.
Gavin Grahovac tagged Johnson for a monstrous solo home run to cut USC’s lead to 9-2 in the fifth.
Lamb, who singled in the fifth, added another two-run double in the ninth.
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