Shanahan in Seventh Heaven : Baseball: CSUN senior hits three homers to key doubleheader sweep. He has seven in two days.

They’ve been teammates at Cal State Northridge for four years and roommates all season. They stay up until the wee hours commiserating or congratulating, depending on what happened that particular day.

They talk about slumps. Girls. Slumps with girls. All that stuff.

“We sleep about three feet from each other,” Jonathan Campbell said. “When we’re all there, it’s pretty interesting.”

Jason Shanahan and Campbell share more than just the same room--their power strokes also are similar. The friendly confines of their room are nothing compared to Matador Field.

Shanahan belted three home runs and Campbell added two Saturday as Northridge buried Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, 27-10, in the second game of a Western Athletic Conference doubleheader after scoring in the final inning to take the opener, 4-3.

Maybe it has something to do with the guy on the Cal Poly roster named Tarantino. When Shanahan looks back at the scorebook from his otherworldly 48-hour span, it’ll read like pulp fiction.

Shanahan, a senior third baseman who hit four homers in Friday’s doubleheader, has seven homers and 18 runs batted in over the last four games. The frenzy isn’t over. Northridge (21-21, 9-9) faces pitching-weary Cal Poly (14-24, 7-12) in another doubleheader today at noon. All six games are seven-inning affairs by mutual agreement.

Shanahan, a switch-hitter, hit four homers while batting left-handed Friday and three from the right side Saturday.

“Right now it doesn’t matter (which side I hit from),” Shanahan said. “Everything feels good on both sides of the plate.”

Campbell can identify. The senior outfielder from Poly High homered exactly once in his first three years at Northridge. After hitting two homers Friday, he added a pair Saturday, raising his season total to a head-turning nine.

“This was probably the hardest I’ve worked in the preseason except for maybe before my senior year in (high school) football,” Campbell said.

Shanahan, an all-conference pick as a junior, entered the six-game weekend with six homers and 30 RBIs. He now has 13 and 48, both team highs, thanks in part to the conference’s Venus de Milo of pitching staffs.

“I’m sure some of it is the pitching,” Northridge Coach Bill Kernen said. “But hitting three homers in three at-bats is hard to do in (batting practice).”

Shanahan hit a pair of homers to lead a 12-run explosion in the second inning of the second game. Cal Poly left-hander Dennis Miller should have known the score was going to be comical when freshman outfielder Jeremy Conrad hit his first college homer to open the inning. Shanahan had two homers in the inning, while Grant Hohman and Campbell each hit one.

Shanahan and his mates tied or buried a slew of Matador single-game records in the second game. Presumably, most were set during nine-inning affairs:

* Shanahan’s three homers tied a record set by Scott Sharts (1990), Rondal Rollin (1980) and Shanahan a mere 24 hours earlier.

* Shanahan’s eight RBIs tied a school mark held by three players, including last season’s right fielder, Kevin Howard.

* Shanahan scored six times to break the record of five held by four players.

* Shanahan’s five hits tied a record held by many players.

* Northridge’s four homers in the second broke the previous mark of three in an inning, a feat accomplished five times.

* Northridge scored 12 runs on 10 hits in the second inning. Both tied school records for single-inning outbursts.

* The teams combined for 10 homers to break the record of nine, set on two previous occasions.

The opener was considerably more hard-fought. Northridge scored twice in the bottom of the sixth to pull even, 3-3, then manufactured a run in the bottom of the seventh to win.

With one out, Campbell walked and stole second with freshman Adam Kennedy at the plate. Shannon Stephens (4-5) elected to continue pitching to Kennedy rather than issue a walk to set up a possible double play.

“I wouldn’t have walked me,” said Kennedy, hitless in three at-bats as he stepped in. “I haven’t been hitting. I would have thrown me a fastball down the middle.”

Stephens grooved a 3-and-2 pitch and Kennedy drilled it into left to drive home the game-winner. As for Kennedy, he may be overstating things a tad. He has hit safely in 22 of 24 games.

Right-hander John Najar (5-4) went the distance for Northridge and allowed nine hits, though it wasn’t a smooth ride. Najar righted himself in midstream, if not a stream of epithets.

After Najar allowed a double and two walks in the fourth as Cal Poly threatened to expand a 2-0 lead, catcher Robert Fick went to the mound and gave Najar an earful.

Najar told Fick to “shut up and just catch the . . . ball.”

“Sometimes that fires me up,” Najar said of the tongue-lashing. “Sometimes when I’m (upset), though, I lose control.”

Najar escaped the inning and allowed one run over the final three innings as Northridge pulled it out.

Thereafter, it was long-ball time, fueled primarily by Shanahan.

“Sometimes, there’s no way to pitch to a guy who’s going like this,” Kernen said. “You just pitch to him and pray he hits it right at somebody.”