COLLEGE BASEBALL : Pepperdine Pitcher Has Made an Orel Commitment

Patrick Ahearne spent his childhood in Albuquerque, N.M., where he often watched the Dodgers’ triple-A affiliate, the Albuquerque Dukes.

Ahearne has vivid memories of Mike Marshall, Candy Maldonado and other future Dodgers who made stops in New Mexico on their way to the major leagues, but he said he had to dig through a pile of his old Duke trading cards to find a reminder of Orel Hershiser.

That might come as a surprise to those who have watched Ahearne pitch this season for Pepperdine, because the 6-foot-3 junior has been doing an almost picture-perfect imitation of the Dodger right-hander.

Like Hershiser, Ahearne wears No. 55. And his pitching motion and mannerisms on and around the mound are almost identical to those of the 1988 Cy Young Award winner.

“It’s not a gimmick, it’s just how I pitch,” said Ahearne, 8-1 with a 3.17 earned-run average for the seventh-ranked Waves. “You can’t go out and consciously copy a guy and still concentrate on what you’re doing.”

Still, reminders of Hershiser are everywhere for Ahearne.

His telephone answering machine’s message includes Vin Scully’s description of the last out of Hershiser’s record-breaking 59th consecutive scoreless inning in 1988. His VCR is often filled with a tape of Hershiser’s Game 7 performance against the New York Mets in the 1988 National League playoffs.

“Watching that sometimes helps me get into a groove,” said Ahearne, who was 13-1 with a 3.42 ERA last season and helped lead Harbor College to the State community college championship. “I see it in my head, see it on TV and then I can go out and do it.”

Ahearne isn’t the only pitcher having an outstanding season for the Waves, who have a staff ERA of 2.60. Junior left-hander Jerry Aschoff is 4-1 with a 2.89 ERA, and relievers Steve Montgomery (5-0, 0.75) and Derek Wallace (2-0, 1.02) have been reliable.

Combined with a defense that has allowed only 13 unearned runs, Pepperdine, 23-5-1 overall and 12-3 in the West Coast Conference, is in good shape to gain its sixth playoff berth in seven years.

“Coach (Andy) Lopez told the pitching staff from the beginning, ‘If you guys are nails, the whole team will be, too,’ ” Ahearne said. “So far, we’ve kept up our end of the deal.”

Halfway home: Arizona State’s Packard Stadium was the site of a bloody brawl last season between the Sun Devils and USC.

When the teams met there again last weekend, there were no violent incidents, but there was a one-sided beating courtesy of the No. 2-ranked Trojans.

USC improved its record to 29-8-1 overall and 14-1 in the Pacific 10 Southern Division by sweeping the Sun Devils. It marked the first time since Arizona State joined the conference in 1979 that it was swept by the Trojans in front of its highly vocal home fans.

“They’re a front-running crowd, and we took them right out of the game,” USC’s Jeff Cirillo said. “It was a very mild atmosphere, like we were playing at a neutral site.”

After the series, Arizona State Coach Jim Brock said: “USC doesn’t need to improve a bit to be national champion.”

USC defeated No. 5 Cal State Long Beach, 6-2, in a nonconference game Tuesday.

The Trojans begin the second round of conference play this weekend when they travel to second-place Stanford (4-3), which has been plagued by rainouts.

“They’re probably the one club that could look down the barrel of all those (makeup) games and survive it because of their pitching depth,” USC Coach Mike Gillespie said of the Cardinal.

UCLA (5-7), California (5-9), Arizona State (5-10) and Arizona (4-9) round out the Pac-10 standings.

A real Shocker: UC Irvine first baseman Bryant Winslow is the only college baseball player in Southern California who wears a national championship ring.

Winslow, a senior, earned the band in 1989 when he batted .297 with eight home runs and 53 runs batted in for Wichita State, which defeated Texas for the College World Series title.

But as Winslow can attest, winning isn’t everything.

Last season, slowed by injuries, his average fell to .247 and he hit only five homers.

“I was really in a rut at Wichita,” said Winslow, who went to high school in Littleton, Colo. “It got to the point where I wasn’t enjoying baseball or life in general.”

At the urging of Joe Sewell, a high school teammate who is a pitcher for Irvine, Winslow transferred with one season of eligibility.

“I feel like a freshman again,” he said.

Last weekend, Winslow hit a home run in the bottom of the 13th inning to give Irvine a victory over Cal State Fullerton. He is batting .241 with eight home runs, one shy of the school record shared by five former Anteaters.

“In California, you never really have a game where you go into it knowing you can boost your stats and go eight for eight in a doubleheader,” Winslow said. “At Wichita, we played some good teams, but it was never on a daily basis.

“I’ve never played in so many close ballgames as I have since coming to Irvine. It’s real baseball.”

There are other subtle differences that Winslow has embraced since moving from the Midwest.

“I came from a school in Kansas which is basically in the middle of wheat fields,” Winslow said. “Now I live on Balboa Penisula and can see the ocean from my apartment. I can’t complain.”

The A list: Pepperdine first baseman Dan Melendez, Cal State Fullerton shortstop Phil Nevin, USC outfielder Mark Smith and Stanford outfielder Jeffrey Hammonds are among the first group of players invited to tryouts for the United States team which will participate in the Pan American Games Aug. 4-17 in Cuba.

Forty players will be invited to the tryouts, which start on June 10 in Millington, Tenn.

College Baseball Notes

UCLA’s Ryan McGuire, a freshman designated hitter, went seven for 10 with three doubles in last weekend’s Oscar Mayer tournament at Minneapolis. UCLA, Minnesota and Stanford each finished 2-1 in the round-robin tournament that also included Notre Dame. . . . USC’s Jeff Cirillo raised his batting average to .395 by going eight for 14 last weekend against Arizona State.

Junior left-hander Steve Whitaker is 7-1 with a 1.88 ERA for Cal State Long Beach, which has won 21 of the past 23 games. The 49ers have the top three hitters in the Big West Conference--Scott Talanoa (.452), Jason Giambi (.418) and Michael Case (.395). . . . Junior right-hander Ken Kendrena is 6-1 with a 2.71 ERA for No. 16 Cal State Northridge.

UC Santa Barbara shortstop Danny Lane leads the Big West with 53 RBIs. Lane went five for five and had a school-record 10 RBIs on March 24 against U.S. International. . . . Steve Sisco of Cal State Fullerton has a 16-game hitting streak and is batting a team-high .386.

UC Irvine outfielder Mike Goodcase, a senior who is batting .347, went eight for 11 last weekend against Fullerton, including a grand slam. . . . Chad Dembisky is 7-3 with a 2.44 ERA for Loyola Marymount, which is second behind Pepperdine in the West Coast Conference at 11-6.