Pepperdine Foils CSUN in 15 Innings : College baseball: Matadors fall, 6-4, as Melendez drives in winning run in second at-bat against Kendrena.

Somehow, some way, it figured that Kenny Kendrena and Dan Melendez were going to face off with Tuesday’s baseball game between host Cal State Northridge and Pepperdine hanging in the balance.

Last week, in the first meeting of the season between the nationally ranked top-10 teams, Melendez slugged three home runs--baseball’s hat trick--against Northridge’s ace right-hander.

So, with the winning run on first base, none out in the 13th inning and Melendez coming to the plate, who else would Northridge Coach Bill Kernen summon from the bullpen but Kendrena?

Not even Melendez was surprised. “I kind of thought they might even start him again,” he said later.

Kendrena won the confrontation, first picking off Chris Sheff and then retiring Melendez on a fly ball to left.

But in the 15th, Melendez won a rematch and fourth-ranked Pepperdine (39-10-1) won its 11th in a row, 6-4.

Melendez’s game-winning single, a one-hopper through the right side of the infield, followed a double by David Lovell and a walk to Sheff, who later scored on a wild pitch.

Melendez, a junior who plays first base for Team USA, has 37 runs batted in this season--eight coming in six at-bats against Kendrena.

“He was pumped up, a lot more confident today,” Melendez said of Kendrena (9-6). “The first time up he fooled me but the second time he made one mistake, left a (split-finger fastball) up.”

To that point, Pepperdine’s only offense had been generated by catcher Scott Vollmer, a somewhat unlikely source.

Vollmer belted a pair of home runs--a three-run shot in the sixth and a solo blast in the 11th--to account for the Waves’ first four runs. He had hit only three homers in 154 at-bats before the game.

Vollmer’s home run in the sixth accounted for Pepperdine’s only runs off Northridge starter David Eggert, who scattered nine hits over 9 2/3 innings.

Steve Rodriguez led off the sixth with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt, prompting Kernen to order an intentional pass to Melendez with first base open and two out.

The move was unorthodox because Eggert is a left-hander and Melendez hits from the left side. But with Melendez already having singled in his first two at-bats, Northridge took its chances with the right-handed hitting Vollmer, who smashed Eggert’s second pitch over the left-field wall for a 3-1 lead.

Northridge (36-12-1) forced extra innings only after it was down to its final strike. After Denny Vigo’s solo home run in the seventh pulled the Matadors within a run, Mike Solar tied the score with a two-out homer in the ninth off Steve Montgomery, Pepperdine’s bullpen ace.

The homers were two of 15 Northridge hits. The Matadors left 18 runners on base, including three in each of the 10th and 11th innings. “That’s been killing us all year,” Solar said. “But it shows up even more in a game like this.”

Northridge also had the potential winning run in scoring position in the 12th, but Scott Richardson hit a line drive at shortstop Eric Ekdahl for the third out.