{"id":268633,"date":"2026-04-15T06:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268633\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T06:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:07:10","slug":"dirtbags-upset-no-12-usc-to-open-homestand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/268633\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirtbags Upset No. 12 USC To Open Homestand"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Long Beach State delivered a statement win Tuesday night at Bohl Diamond at Blair Field, knocking off No. 12 USC 5-3 to open its five-game homestand with energy and momentum.
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\nThe Dirtbags wasted no time setting the tone. After Caleb Anderson<\/a> struck out the side in order in the first, Long Beach State capitalized in the bottom half. Jake Evans<\/a> beat out an infield single and Matt Toomey<\/a> followed with a shallow single to right, putting runners on the corners. With two outs, Kaiden Smaka<\/a> delivered the early spark, ripping a double down the left field line to score both runners and give the Dirtbags a 2-0 lead.
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\nFrom there, Anderson took over. The right-hander dominated the Trojans lineup, working efficiently through the first five innings while piling up strikeouts. He recorded a career-high nine punchouts over six innings, repeatedly getting ahead in counts and finishing hitters with swing-and-miss pitches.
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\nLong Beach State added on in the fourth with clean, situational baseball. Aaron Perez<\/a> and Reid Montgomery<\/a> opened the inning with back-to-back singles before a Damon Valdez<\/a> sacrifice bunt moved both into scoring position. Trotter Enright<\/a> lifted a sacrifice fly to right to score Perez. Evans then dropped a single into center, allowing Montgomery to score and push the Dirtbags’ lead to 4-0.
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\nThe Dirtbags continued to pressure in the middle innings. Smaka stayed aggressive, legging out a triple down the right field line in the fifth, while the pitching staff kept USC off balance. Anderson worked out of limited traffic, including a clean double play in the sixth, before handing the ball over to the bullpen.
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\nUSC finally broke through in the seventh with back-to-back singles and an RBI knock, trimming the lead to 4-1. Long Beach State answered immediately in the bottom half when Evans reached on an error and later came around to score on a Smaka groundout, pushing the advantage to 5-1.
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\nThe Trojans made one last push in the eighth as Augie Lopez launched a two-run homer to right field, but the Dirtbags bullpen held firm. Tyler Gebb<\/a> navigated the inning before closing the door in the ninth, retiring the side to secure the 5-3 upset victory.
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\nThe win marks Long Beach State’s first victory over USC since May 7, 2024, and highest ranked win since beating UCLA in 2022 at home 4-3 (12).
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\nDirtbags were anchored by Smaka, who drove in three runs with a double and added a triple, while Evans collected three hits and an RBI. Anderson earned the win with six strong innings and a career-high nine strikeouts, setting the tone in a complete team performance.
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\nDirtbags will now set their attention to another midweek opponent in San Diego State as they will face them tomorrow evening, first pitch set for 6:05 p.m. at Bohl Diamond at Blair Field.
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\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. — Long Beach State delivered a statement win Tuesday night at Bohl Diamond at Blair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-268633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}