The Trojan army of USC is set to invade Bailey-Brayton Field Friday, and it will arrive with extraordinary momentum.

The USC baseball team has won nine of its last 10 games and now is tied for third in the Pac-12 conference with a 12-9 record. Arizona State is the other team at 12-9, but the Sun Devils have a higher overall winning percentage, which gives them a slight advantage in the standings. 

Redshirt junior shortstop Trace Tam Sing said the Cougars need to pitch well and play solid defense in order to slow down the Trojans this weekend and also to go on their own hot streak. 

“We’ve just got to play good baseball. That’s really it,” Tam Sing said. “I feel like we’ve played good baseball here and there, and it’s been kind of an up and down season for us. We need to find that constant playing ability for us, and we need to do everything we need to do and stick to our plans so we can be consistent just like USC has been.”

WSU started last weekend on a strong note, coming back to beat its rival, the Washington Huskies, on the road. They return home stung by a doubleheader sweep at the hands of Washington, although Head Coach Donnie Marbut liked the effort he saw from his players during that entire series. 

“There’s two things that you don’t ever want to be questioned as an athlete: your effort and your attitude. Guys played hard, and it didn’t work out for him, and as a coach, that’s when your heart breaks,” Marbut said. “They’re giving their best, and sometimes your best wasn’t good enough, and it’s got to be better this week.”

Marbut said the Cougars looked as if they needed to make just one more play or get one more hit against a Huskies team that has played well lately. 

The Cougars need a lot more than just one win, though, to qualify for the playoffs this season. Currently, WSU is 8-10 in the conference and 18-22 overall, which puts the team six games behind the Oregon State Beavers, who lead the Pac-12 at 14-4. 

“There’s still a lot of season left, and my thought is we’re going to have a great month of May,” Marbut said. 

Tam Sing said Marbut tells the team every day that they need to win 14 in a row, and nobody in the locker room doubts that they can do just that. 

“We look at every series as we need to sweep or we need to win the series, and that’s what we need to do to get to our main goal, which is to win a Pac-12 Championship,” Tam Sing said. “These past three weekends, we haven’t really played our best baseball and played the baseball we want to accomplish that goal, so from here on out we need to start doing that.”

The Cougars will begin that upward climb against a stingy USC pitching staff that has recorded three shutouts in the last 10 games. USC’s pitchers have combined for a team ERA of 3.40, which ranks fifth in the Pac-12. 

The WSU pitching rotation is slightly different this weekend because of the amount of pitches senior Jason Monda and junior Tanner Chleborad threw in the doubleheader against Washington on Sunday. Monda threw much less, so he will start on Saturday, and Chleborad will start on Sunday. Junior Joe Pistorese will open the series on Friday for the Cougars. 

The Trojans will counter on Friday with junior right-hander Wyatt Strahan, who has struck out a team-leading 65 hitters. Then the Wheatley brothers will pitch on Saturday and Sunday. The younger brother, sophomore Brent Wheatley, will oppose Monda while the elder Bob Wheatley will face off against Chleborad. In 14 total appearances, Brent Wheatley has a 4-1 record and a 2.82 ERA. His senior brother is 3-3 with a 4.21 ERA in 11 outings, all of which have been starts. 

If either of these teams has a lead late in the game, reliable closers lurk in both bullpens. Freshman Ian Hamilton leads the Pac-12 in saves with 11, and USC sophomore closer Kyle Davis leads the team with a 1.25 ERA and six saves. 

At the plate, USC has two formidable hitters in senior Jake Hernandez and freshman Jeremy Martinez. The two have only struck out 19 times combined and rarely ground into double plays. Hernandez leads the team with a .371 batting average while Martinez has the second-most runs batted in on the team with 25. 

The first pitch Friday is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Bailey-Brayton Field.