Malibu, Calif. - For the first time since the 1971 season, the Pacific baseball returned to its roots as members of the West Coast Conference taking on the Pepperdine Waves on Friday, Mar. 12. Playing on the road, the Tigers suffered a 5-3 loss at Eddy D. Fields Stadium, dropping their opening game of conference play while falling to 8-12 on the season. The Waves improved to 13-4 on the year.

Taking on the hottest team in the conference to start WCC play, the Tigers had their opportunities to pull off the upset but came up just short. On the other side of the plate, the Waves used just a handful of mistakes by the Tigers to do their damage, scoring a pair of runs in the third and fourth innings of action early to make Pacific play from behind. 

In both the third and fourth innings, the Waves turned hit batters into free runs, including picking up an unearned run in the fourth after the Tigers had tied the game at 1-1. For Pacific, the runs were hard to come by despite out-hitting the Waves in the game. In the fourth, down 1-0, the Tigers plated a solo run after sophomore DH J.P. Yakel lead the inning off with Pacific's second double of the afternoon. He would score behind a pair of ground balls, but watch from the dugout as the Tigers gave back the lead in the bottom half of the inning.

Back down one, Pacific again responded by scoring two in the fifth as an error and some uncharacteristic wildness out of the Waves' starter, Corey Miller (3-1), gave Pacific free runners. With the bases loaded, Yakel found himself in the middle of the scoring once again as the second-year Tiger was struck on the shoulder on a 3-1 pitch to force home the tying run. A batter later, sophomore Brett Sullivan delivered the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly to center.

The lead would be short-lived, however, with the Waves rallying with two outs in the bottom half of the fifth to take the lead for good. The big hit came from Austin Davidson who lifted a two-out, two-run, home run to right that put Pacific behind, 4-3, after five innings of play.

The Waves tacked on a fifth run in the seventh after a leadoff triple got junior starter Michael Hager (2-2) into trouble he would not be able to get out of. Overall, Hager went 6.1 innings while giving up six hits and five runs, four earned, while striking out one and issuing five free passes, three of which were hit batters.

Offensively, the Tigers had their chances to get the lead early and come back late, but ultimately stranded the critical runners at third without coming up with a run. B. Sullivan kept his hitting and on-base streak alive with a leadoff triple in the eighth, but was left at third after the Pepperdine bullpen took the ball from Miller to save the game. Eric Karch (5) earned his WCC best fifth save in the game as he picked up the final four outs of the contest for the Waves. Miller finished his day after 7.1 innings of work with three runs given up, one earned, on seven hits and one walk.

The Tigers and Waves are back at it on Saturday, Mar. 13 as the two teams meet for game two of the three game series at 1:00 pm from Fields Stadium.