At only 5 feet, 8 inches, David Gomez is the shortest player on the UCSD baseball team. But his powerful bat and big heart carried the Tritons to an 8-2 victory over Point Loma Nazarene University, as Gomez’s 3-for-3 day, including a home run, gave freshman southpaw starting pitcher Jon Durket all he needed to feel comfortable on the mound in the first collegiate start of his career.
Senior rightfielder David Gomez crosses the plate for one of his two runs in the Tritons’ 8-2 victory over Point Loma Nazarene on April 18.
Durket, who has been impressive in his relief appearances as a first-year player, looked dazzling on the mound in the first inning, setting down the side on a groundout, a flyout and a strikeout.
According to Durket, nervousness was a factor in his start, but not for long.
“I was nervous up until I threw the first pitch,” he said. “After that, I got into a zone.”
His promising start continued throughout his entire stint on the mound, as Durket pitched five shutout innings, allowing four hits and striking out six Sea Lions.
While Durket collected his thoughts in the dugout after the top of the first inning, he saw his offense take a 3-0 lead off Sea Lion starting pitcher Shane Kochon. Senior centerfielder Damian Fante led off the game with a walk and crossed the plate on freshman first baseman Matt Cantele’s RBI double into the left-center field gap. Junior leftfielder David Morehead followed Cantele with a near home run off the right-field wall that ended as an RBI double with Cantele’s run putting the Tritons ahead, 2-0. The no-out rally suddenly took a turn for the worse, as Scott Clement struck out swinging and Morehead got caught stealing, but freshman second baseman Garret Imeson’s double, UCSD’s third of the inning, put the Tritons in position for a two-out rally.
This set up Gomez to face the 6 foot, 1 inch Kochon in an RBI situation in his first at-bat since coming back from a hip flexor strain. Little David beat his Goliath with a liner to left center that put the Tritons up 3-0 going into the second inning.
“I was just itching to get back in that lineup,” Gomez said. “I think that helped out a lot because the second I got in the box I was just ready to go.”
In the Point Loma Nazarene second inning, Durket worked himself out of a one-out, first-and-third situation, getting the much-needed strikeout on a swinging strike by Rich Killen before working a groundout from Joey Boyle.
UCSD would add another run in the second, but the crowd was not satisfied until Gomez’s second at-bat, this time against 6 foot, 4 inch relief pitcher Chris Honer. Once again unfazed by the towering pitcher staring him down from the mound, Gomez lined an inside pitch over the right-field fence for a homer. The ball lifted the crowd to its feet, as the laser shot left the park in a hurry before Gomez could even get into his trot.
When asked about any extra physical preparation that could have led to his power, Gomez instead offered a more intellectual approach.
“I realize on certain counts that I will get certain pitches,” he said. “For instance, in that at-bat, it was a 2-1 count with nobody on and two outs, so I was looking for a fastball somewhere around the plate and he gave it to me and I was ready to jump on it.”
Gomez was in the middle of another significant Triton rally in the fifth inning as his single put runners on first and third with one out. One out later, Bryan Silverman doubled to right-center field and drove in two runs, including Gomez, for a 7-0 lead.
Point Loma Nazarene would go on to score two meaningless runs off the UCSD bullpen in the sixth and seventh innings off Michael Kearney to pull within five runs. However, scoreless eight and ninth innings from Ryan Leake and Todd Gimenez, respectively, shut the door on the Sea Lions and gave the Tritons their 25th overall win and Durket his first win as a starter.
Durket’s emergence as a force on the mound gives UCSD head coach Dan O’Brien a dilemma about what to do with the young pitcher.
“It was an outstanding start and we wouldn’t be doing our job if we weren’t considering putting him in the rotation based on what we saw today,” O’Brien said.
Durket will have some supporters in his push toward the rotation, including Morehead, who was impressed with the freshman’s performance.
“He had pitched well before so we were pretty confident in his abilities as a pitcher,” Morehead said. “So this was really his first opportunity, being a freshman and coming into a veteran rotation, to get a start. And he took advantage of it and pitched well.”
The Tritons could use a fresh addition to their rotation as they head into the home stretch of the season, when they play 12 of their next 13 games against CCAA opponents before the CCAA Tournament begins on May 11. Besides an April 25 meeting with Grand Canyon University at UCSD, the Tritons will play three four-game series against CCAA competition. The team will face Cal State Dominguez Hills on the road for two games before hosting them for another two April 20 to 22. The Tritons will then face San Francisco State University for four games on the road before closing out their season with a series against Cal State Monterey Bay at home May 5 to 7.
According to Morehead, for the Tritons to succeed in the home stretch, all they need to do is play like they did against the Sea Lions.
“This Point Loma game was the type of baseball we need to play,” he said. “We did everything well; we hit the ball, we pitched, we played defense as well. With those three things, its going to be; really tough for another team to be able to beat us because we are extremely solid in all three areas of the game.”
