CSUN Hosts Pepperdine in Final Meeting of the Season

Tuesday, April 7

Northridge, Calif.

5:00 p.m.

California State University at Northridge

Pepperdine

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Photo by: Chuck Marvel

CSUN Hosts Pepperdine in Final Meeting of the Season

4/6/2026 4:43:00 PM | Baseball

BASE Game Notes - April 6

NORTHRIDGE, Calif.---CSUN Baseball will play Pepperdine for the third and final time on Tuesday at Robert J. Hiegert Field. First pitch is set for 5 p.m. with Ghizal Hasan calling the action in an audio broadcast at GoMatadors.com/Radio.

FOR STARTERS
The Matadors (17-13, 8-7 Big West) and Waves are competing for the second time in as many weeks and for the third time overall this season. Each side has held serve at home in the first two meetings thus far. After Tuesday, CSUN will host four more midweek games at Robert J. Hiegert Field, as the next matchup is set for Tuesday, April 14 against LMU. This weekend, CSUN resumes Big West play with a road series at UC Riverside.

ABOUT LAST WEEKEND
CSUN notched its first series win at home this season as the Matadors took two of three games from Long Beach State. The series win was CSUN's fifth consecutive over the Dirtbags. In the opener, CSUN picked up a career-high eight innings out of Gabriel Hernandez with just two runs allowed while Matthew Pena hit a key three-run homer in a 7-2 victory. Long Beach State powered its way to a 17-4 win to even the series on Friday, but CSUN turned the tables with an 18-4 triumph in the rubber game to win the series on Saturday. In the finale, five Matadors had multi-hit efforts led by Matthew Thomas and Trent Abel producing four hits each while the CSUN bullpen combined to toss five shutout frames to secure the victory.

THOMAS CLAIMS SECOND BIG WEST FIELD PLAYER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Junior outfielder Matthew Thomas powered the Matador offense, slashing .579/.600/.737 across four games to earn his second Big West Field Player of the Week award of the season. Thomas, who also received the weekly conference honor on March 2, totaled 11 hits, six RBI, five runs scored and one homer. He would produce three games of three hits or more during the week, highlighted by a four-hit effort with four RBI and a home run to help CSUN take the series against Long Beach State on April 4.

LEADING THE BIG WEST
CSUN's offensive exploits over the weekend has moved the team to the top of several categories in the Big West entering the week. The Matadors now lead the league in batting average (.293), runs scored (208), RBI (197), total bases (526) and slugging percentage (.516) while CSUN has led the conference throughout most of the season in home runs, now with 50. CSUN currently ranks 23rd in the nation in home runs per game (1.67) and 28th with its 50 homers. The Matadors are also 24th in the Division I baseball in slugging percentage.

MATADOR QUICK HITS
Freshman right hander Charles Rogers will make the start versus Pepperdine on Tuesday. Rogers sports a 0-1 record with a 9.68 ERA across 10 appearances including two starts. He has struck out 12 batters total in 17.2 innings ... Junior Matthew Pena enters the week 22nd in the nation in home runs (12) and 23rd in slugging percentage (.773). Pena is the Big West leader in both home runs and slugging while he is second in OPS (1.198) and RBI (34) ... Newcomer Matthew Thomas is atop the Big West leaderboard in OPS at a 1.211 clip and in runs scored at 33. Thomas is also the Matador leader in hits (41) and doubles (11) to go with 10 homers, 28 RBI and a .360 batting average on the campaign ... Sophomore Colton Boardman is off to a strong start in his second season with CSUN, leading the team in batting at a .363 clip, good enough for third-best in the Big West. Boardman has already surpassed his entire hit total from last season (24) by recording 29 this year ... Right hander Gabriel Hernandez has taken over Friday starting duties for CSUN as late. Hernandez (3-2) sports a 4.47 ERA with 28 strikeouts across eight starts in 2026, however, he has lowered his ERA to 3.24 in Big West play with 23 strikeouts in 33.1 total conference innings.

SCOUTING PEPPERDINE
The Waves are 10-21 overall this season and 5-4 in West Coast Conference play. After beating CSUN last Tuesday, Pepperdine dropped two of three games at Gonzaga over the weekend. Overall, the team is 4-12 on the road this season. The Waves' pitching staff is ranked sixth in the WCC in ERA at 6.20 while the offense is ninth in batting at a .243 clip as a group. Daniel Patterson tops the club with eight homers, 19 RBI, 28 runs scored and a .305 batting average followed by James Dell'Amico with 17 RBI and a .304 average at the plate. Closer Lucien Wechsberg sports a 1.76 ERA for the year to go with 16 strikeouts and four saves.

Series History: CSUN and Pepperdine have each won 50 games with two ties in their all-time series. On March 9, CSUN won the first meeting this season with Pepperdine in Northridge by a 12-1 score in seven innings behind a 10-hit attack. The Waves evened the series at home last Tuesday, defeating CSUN 6-5 on a walk-off home run from Patterson after CSUN had tied the game in the top of the ninth.

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