Kendrena Exacts His Revenge in Northridge’s Win : College baseball: Junior right-hander pays back Creighton trio with a strong effort to propel CSUN to 9-5 victory in Fresno tournament.

FRESNO —  The last time Ken Kendrena faced a lineup that included Scott Stahoviak, Chad McConnell and John Pivovar, he was pounded so fast and furiously that he failed to make it out of the third inning.

That was last summer when Kendrena was pitching for Athletes in Action against the Wichita Broncos in the Kansas state tournament of the National Baseball Congress.

On Wednesday, in the final round of pool play in the Fresno tournament, Kendrena, now pitching for Cal State Northridge, faced a Creighton University lineup that included the three sluggers who each had hit home runs off him in that summer game.

This time, the trio combined to strike out five times and manage just two singles in 11 at-bats as Northridge earned its third consecutive tournament victory, 9-5, at Fresno State’s Beiden Field.

The Matadors will play Indiana State (4-4) at 4 p.m. today.

‘That was the same guy from this summer?” a doubting Pivovar said. “He pitched a great game. He must have really turned things around.”

Indeed he has. Kendrena improved to 5-1 with a complete-game performance that, with the exception of a five-batter stretch in the sixth inning, was dominating.

Through 5 2/3 innings, the junior right-hander had a shutout and had allowed only two balls out of the infield--a looping single to right by Pivovar and a fly out to left by Steve Hinton, the Bluejays’ cleanup hitter.

But then came, as Kendrena later called it, “the Wichita flashback:” five consecutive hits--doubles by Bobby Langer, Dax Jones and Rick Freehling, followed by singles by Stahoviak and Hinton--and a 4-0 lead.

“The sixth inning was pretty much how it went the whole game against Wichita, but I’m a different person now,” Kendrena said. “I knew I was going to come back and finish it.”

To that end, he received a big boost from the Northridge offense, which slumbered through the first five innings before being awakened by the crack of Creighton’s extra-base hits.

“That was a wake-up call for us,” said Northridge’s Mike Solar, who delivered a bases-clearing double to highlight the Matadors’ five-run outburst in the bottom of the inning.

Craig Clayton started the rally with a one-out single to right, extending his hitting streak to 17 games. Scott Richardson followed with a triple off the base of the right-center-field fence, marking the 11th consecutive game in which he has hit safely.

Scott Sharts followed with a one-hop smash off the glove of Langer, Creighton’s shortstop. It was scored an error, but Sharts was credited with a run batted in, his team-leading 38th.

Greg Shockey then singled Sharts to second, but Kyle Washington followed with a ground ball to Stahoviak, who got Sharts on a force out at third. That brought up Mike Sims, who had been brought in to catch as a defensive replacement in the top half of the inning.

Sims, his left wrist heavily taped, is unable to swing a bat but Creighton obviously didn’t know it. Leading, 4-2, the Bluejays played their infield back and Sims dropped a textbook bunt down the third-base line to load the bases.

Solar, the next man up, hit a shot into the left-center-field gap and Northridge took the lead, 5-4.

“Amazing,” CSUN Coach Bill Kernen said. “If Sims doesn’t get that bunt down, Solar never gets up there and who knows what happens.”

Said Solar: “I was kind of hoping he’d get that one down. They gave me some good pitches to hit earlier and I didn’t capitalize on them.”

Solar’s double, his second of the game, chased starter Brian O’Conner and started a parade of five Bluejay relief pitchers.

Northridge (18-7-1) added four more runs in the seventh inning, parlaying two hit batters, two walks, two singles and a double into a 9-4 lead.

After Andy Hodgins and Clayton were hit by pitches to start the inning, Richardson doubled in a run with a one-hopper off the fence in right field. Sharts was then intentionally walked and left-hander Brian O’Brien came in to face the left-handed hitting Greg Shockey with the bases loaded.

Perhaps unbeknown to the Bluejays, Shockey takes such tactics personally.

“It’s an insult,” said Shockey, who drove in Clayton and Richardson by lining O’Brien’s second pitch into right field for a single. “They’re telling me I’m not as good of a hitter, and I think I’m a pretty damn good hitter. They show me no respect when they do that.”

Washington then walked to reload the bases and again bring up Sims who--surprise!--bunted again, this time up the first-base line for a single that scored Sharts and gave the Matadors a 9-4 advantage.

Given the lead, Kendrena seemed to regain his rhythm. He retired Creighton in order in the seventh and got three ground outs in the eighth. The 20th-ranked Bluejays (11-2) scored their final run in the ninth on a triple by Hinton and a sacrifice fly by Ryan Martindale.

“That was a championship effort, as well as we’ve played in a long time,” Kernen said. “(Creighton) is as good as anybody and to be down four runs and come back like that says something. Average teams can’t do that.”

Notes

Northridge has won four in a row, including two over Top 20 teams. On Tuesday, the Matadors defeated 16th-ranked North Carolina, 6-1. . . . Wednesday’s game started 30 minutes late because an early morning downpour drenched the field. Despite the work of the Fresno ground crew, the outfield was particularly treacherous and the dugout areas were flooded. . . . Denny Vigo made his first start at third base since pulling his right hamstring muscle against San Jose State on Feb. 24. He was hitless in four at-bats but made several nice defensive plays.