COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The USC baseball team won its fourth game in three days to extend its season.
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Augie Lopez drove in five runs, three of them on a seventh-inning homer, and four USC pitchers combined to stifle Texas A&M in a 7-1 victory on Monday night as the Trojans won the College Station Regional and advanced to a best-of-three Super Regional against No. 5 seed North Carolina that will begin later this week.
The 12th-seeded Aggies (41-16) grabbed an early lead on a Bear Harrison solo home run in the bottom of the third inning, but USC (47-16) took the lead for good on RBI singles by Abbrie Covarrubias and Lopez in the fifth.
Lopez gave the USC pitchers some breathing room when he launched a three-run homer to right field in the seventh for a 5-1 lead.
The Trojans tacked on two more insurance runs in the eighth. Adrian Lopez fielder’s choice scored Dean Carpentier, then Augie Lopez capped his night with a sacrifice fly to score Walter Urbon.
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Sophomore right-hander Grant Govel allowed one run on three hits through the first four innings for the Trojans, then Chase Herrell allowed three hits over 3⅔ scoreless innings. Left-hander Sax Matson came on with two runners on to get the final out of the eighth, then Adam Troy took care of the ninth to close out the win.
USC dropped its regional opener to Texas State on Friday before bouncing back with a win against Lamar University in an elimination game on Saturday. The Trojans then avenged their loss to Texas State on Sunday before beating Texas A&M for the first time on Sunday night, setting up the winner-take-all rematch with the Aggies.
UNC (48-11-1) finished second in the Atlantic Coast Conference behind Georgia Tech in the regular season and lost to the Yellow Jackets in the ACC Tournament final as well. The Tar Heels went 3-0 to win their four-team regional, beating VCU in their opener, 8-0, before beating East Carolina twice (7-5 and 9-3).
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More to come on this story.