Coming off an 0-4 weekend in its opening series at Duke, the Columbia baseball team continues its 17-game opening tour at 24th-ranked Pepperdine this weekend looking for its first win. It will not be easy to come by against the Waves, who enter the series 6-3 having lost just once at home to Wake Forest, 13-9.

Last year, the Lions traveled to another California school, St. Mary’s College, where they went 0-3-1. For the team to have a more successful trip, improvements from the weekend in Durham must be made.

The Light Blue pitching struggled to shut down the Duke hitters as the Blue Devils scored 36 runs in four games. While 19 of them came in the series finale, 18 coming off freshmen pitchers Geoff Whitaker and Roger Aquino, Duke also scored 11 in another game.

With ace John Baumann still playing basketball, the load will continue to fall on less experienced pitchers. Last weekend, no starter but Bill Purdy had started a game the previous season.

While the Columbia starters have not yet been announced for the weekend, whoever takes the hill will face an offense that is scoring eight runs per game and has scored at least 10 runs in four games.

Junior shortstop Chase d’Arnaud has started the season batting .354 for the Waves and has already hit three home runs, driven in 12 runs, and stolen five bases. Meanwhile, the Waves’ leadoff hitter, junior third baseman Bryce Mendonca, has already tallied nine steals.

In the first game of four, Pepperdine will send junior right-hander Nathan Newman to the mound. Newman is 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA this season. The other announced starter is freshman southpaw Scott Alexander. Alexander, who will start the third game of the series, went seven-and-two-thirds innings in his last start, a 5-2 loss to Minnesota. He gave up three runs, the third of which was the deciding score in the eighth inning.
Pepperdine’s ace is preseason all-American Brett Hunter. Hunter, a junior, finished with a 6-5 record and a 3.94 ERA last season. He has lived up to the hype so far this season, going 1-0 with a 2.77 ERA.

Alexander, Newman and the rest of the staff will face a Columbia offense that was kept quiet for the most part by the Duke pitchers. The Lions were held to 10 runs over the weekend—fewer runs than Duke scored in two of the weekend’s games—though junior first baseman Ron Williams has started strong.

Williams and the rest of the offense gets its first crack at the Waves at 5 p.m. Friday in Malibu, Calif.