The USC Trojan baseball team won the first of a three game series vs. Pepperdine, 3-1, on Friday night.
After playing in Irvine for the past two seasons, the Trojans finally have a new home, one they made proud with a dominant pitching performance. Sophomore starting pitcher Mason Edwards set a career high with nine strikeouts in five innings of work, only walking two. Replacing him was freshman relief pitcher Gavin Lauridson, who cruised through his first two innings. After being sent back out in the 8th inning, he immediately found himself in trouble, allowing a single and hitting a batter before ultimately being pulled for redshirt junior closer, Adam Troy. He was facing his former squad, where he spent his first two seasons, adding fuel to the fire of navigating the rest of the inning.
“We feel like he’s the guy that can pitch us out of a jam,” head coach Andy Stankiewicz said after the game. “We were going back and forth on who to go with. We decided to go with Troy. He’s got experience. Give him the ball, get us out of a jam.”
That was exactly what Troy did, striking out three of the next four batters while only allowing one run to score. It didn’t stop there, as Stankiewicz sent him back out to the mound for the ninth.
“He’s been mostly a one inning guy in our inner-squad games,” Stankiewicz said. “We were so proud of him.”
Troy retired three of the last four batters, ending the game with a high heater to wash the Pepperdine Waves away.
Sophomore designated hitter Augie Lopez got the first runs of 2026 for the Trojans in the bottom of the first, with a double rocketed into left field. They added a third run in the bottom of the seventh, with a sacrifice flyout by junior first baseman Dean Carpentier.
After the game, Lopez sang high praises for Troy.
“That’s our closer right there,” Lopez said. “He’s incredible. He’s going to be lights out all year for us, just like he was tonight. We’re all super proud of him. We’re behind him every pitch.”
Lopez was relieved to finally be home, even joking before the game in the dugout with his teammates about there actually being people at the stadium to watch them.
When asked about this after the game Lopez said, “It was really cool to see some familiar faces in the crowd.”
Stankiewicz added to this, mentioning how huge it is to have a true home field. “For two years we haven’t had a home…It’s just nice to have our clubhouse right here. It’s good to have practice here so you’re comfortable. That’s part of having a home field advantage is the comfortability that you have and the routine you can build.”
Luckily for the Trojans, they get to try and build off of this momentum, when they face Pepperdine for game two of the series, tonight at 6 p.m, back at Dedeaux.