{"id":315105,"date":"2026-05-30T05:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T05:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/315105\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T05:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T05:49:07","slug":"usc-squanders-late-lead-falls-to-texas-state-in-ncaa-regional-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/315105\/","title":{"rendered":"USC squanders late lead, falls to Texas State in NCAA regional opener"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

COLLEGE STATION, Texas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0USC<\/a> couldn\u2019t hold on to the lead Adrian Lopez provided with a home run in the bottom of the eighth Friday night.<\/p>\n

Texas State\u2019s Chase Mora greeted reliever Adam Troy with a monstrous two-run home run to left field in the top of ninth inning, propelling the Bobcats to a 5-4 upset<\/a> before a crowd of 6,956 at Blue Bell Park.<\/p>\n

The Trojans had plenty of chances, and they wasted most of them in the opening round of the NCAA tournament\u2019s College Station Regional.<\/p>\n

Even though the Bobcats\u2019 shaky defense spotted USC two unearned runs, the Trojans will surely lament stranding runners in scoring position in each of the first seven innings.<\/p>\n

The Trojans will face Lamar University, which blew a five-run lead in a 7-5 loss against host Texas A&M, on Saturday at 1 p.m. PT.<\/p>\n

If coach Andy Stankiewicz\u2019s Trojans return to the Men\u2019s College World Series for the first time since 2001, the 12-time national champions must do it out of the losers bracket.<\/p>\n

USC right-hander Grant Govel, an All-Big Ten First Team selection, settled for a no-decision after giving up three runs on four hits with two walks and six strikeouts over 5\u2154 innings.<\/p>\n

He was relieved by freshman left-hander Sax Matson with one on and two outs in the top of the sixth. Matson escaped unscathed in the sixth, but he was relieved by right-hander Andrew Johnson with one on and two outs in the seventh.<\/p>\n

The Trojans (43-16), who reached the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, have lost four of their last five games.<\/p>\n

Mora\u2019s sacrifice fly to right field gave the Bobcats a 1-0 lead in the second inning. The Trojans countered to tie the score with a run in the bottom of the second.<\/p>\n

With runners on first and second and two outs, Abbrie Covarrubias hit a grounder to first. Texas State first baseman Jaquae Stewart booted the grounder for an error, allowing Isaac Cadena to score. Stewart almost made the situation worse with a wild throw to second, but Dean Carpentier was thrown out trying to reach third on the poor throw to second.<\/p>\n

The Trojans benefited from more poor defense in the third. With one out in the inning, Augie Lopez reached on an error by Mora at third. Kevin Takeuchi followed with a double off the center-field wall. Jack Basseer broke the tie with an RBI single through the left side.<\/p>\n

Covarrubias hit a solo home run to left in the fourth to put USC ahead 3-1. Texas State sophomore shortstop Brady Boles, who entered the regional with only one home run this season and two in his college career, tied the score 3-3 with a two-run home run to left field in the top of the fifth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE STATION, Texas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0USC couldn\u2019t hold on to the lead Adrian Lopez provided with a home run in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113281,113282,113285,113279,113284,90762,113286,84339,43418,113283,27,29,28,2426,16322,43409,113280,28768],"class_list":["post-315105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-abbrie-covarrubias","tag-bobcat","tag-bottom","tag-chase-mora","tag-error","tag-home-run","tag-ncaa-regional-opener","tag-ninth-inning","tag-out","tag-second-innings","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-state","tag-top","tag-trojans","tag-unearned-run","tag-usc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}