A Pitcher's Duel

There are many reasons why people prefer college sports over professional sports: heart, passion and highly scoring games to name a few.  However, if they were to attend the home opener for the Long Beach State Dirtbags they would of been a bit let down in the highly scoring category.  The Dirtbags took the Rice University Owls on a 10 inning ride and, at the end of the day, finished with a win. 

The game seemed to fly by, mainly due to the fact the pitchers on both teams were throwing heat and strikes.  Ryan Berry started on the mound for the Owls, striking out 8 out of the 26 pitches he threw. 

The Dirtbag's right-handed pitcher Andrew Liebel is no stranger to the Owls.  Last season, the Owls took 2 out of the 3 games against the Dirtbags; however, the only win they had went to Liebel.  Liebel was brought in as relief pitcher in the first game last season and was allotted the win.  This season will be different for Liebel.  He earned a spot on the starting pitching rotation, and tonight he proved why.  Tonight Liebel pitched eight innings and only let five hits pass him by.  He also had career-high 11 strike outs.  As I was sitting up in the media booth, I noticed that the majority of the section sitting in front of me were not typical fans, they were scouts.  It was interesting to see the amount of radar speed guns that would arise when Liebel was pitching, we might have a star on our hands.

Andrew Liebel

All-in-all the game was a pitcher's duel.  Both preformed extremely well, forcing a scoreless game to go into extra innings.  Needless to say, this was not a highly active game for position players.  In the bottom of the 10th, short stop Danny Espinosa  slammed the ball over the head of the left fielder to advance Zach Barger and notch the first Dirtbag win.  The rain was no problem for our boys.