Notre Dame Gets Away From Del Rey Crowd

While much of the Southland fretted over Nostradamus’ prediction of a big earthquake shaking up the area, Notre Dame’s baseball team took it upon itself to do a little shaking of its own.

The Knights, locked in a three-way tie for first place in the Del Rey League going into Tuesday’s games, broke loose from the pack with a convincing 9-3 win over St. Francis at Brookside Park in Pasadena.

Bobby Hughes provided the seismic blast of the evening, a 400-foot grand slam to left-center field in the third inning to cap the Knights’ six-run inning and give them a 6-2 lead.

“That’s real nice to see,” Notre Dame Coach Bob Mandeville said. “That was a real clutch hit. Our kids rose to the occasion tonight.”

The Knights’ uprising, combined with Loyola and Alemany losses, gave Notre Dame sole possession of first place with a 7-4 league record.

But in the early going, it appeared that Notre Dame was going to do little to break up the logjam.

Knight right-hander Mike Petersen pitched the first two innings as if he was standing on a fault line, allowing two runs while walking four and hitting two batters.

Faced with a 2-0 deficit, Notre Dame (17-9) rallied in the third with Jeff Antoon rapping a run-scoring single to tie the game and set the scene for Hughes’ blast.

After that, Petersen (8-4) surrendered only one meaningless run in the seventh. He struck out six, walked five and finished with a four-hitter.

“Mike really settled down after the early going and pitched a great game,” Mandeville said.

Notre Dame added two in the fifth when Tony Ljubetic scored on a passed ball and Chris Lohman followed with an RBI-double off the right-field fence. Antoon drove in the final run with a groundout in the seventh.

The loss knocked St. Francis (4-7 in league play) out of the Del Rey playoff picture.

“The kids have worked really hard all year long and I think they are getting what they deserve,” Mandeville said.