The Loyola Marymount Lions (11-7, 3-0 WCC) swept their season-opening West Coast Conference series against Santa Clara 7-3 behind Nick Frasso's dominance on the mound, Brandon Shearer and Trevin Esquerra's continued solid play and a big fourth inning to roll past the Broncos.
 
Nick Frasso got the call from head coach Jason Gill and the sophomore delivered giving the Lions 7.0 innings, conceding six hits, two runs, zero walks while striking out two on 98 total pitches.
 
Shearer was brilliant in the series for LMU batting .400, with six hits, three runs, four RBIs, two doubles and three stolen bases over the weekend against the Broncos.
 
The Lions got on the board in the bottom of the first when Shearer doubled to left center, the first of his three hits, setting the table for Esquerra.  He punched a 3-2 delivery from Santa Clara's Brendan Ecklebarger up the middle plating the first LMU run.
 
Frasso got some more help from his teammates in the bottom of the third when the pair of Shearer and Esquerra produced another run and RBI. Shearer got on base with a single to left field, promptly stole second and was hit home off Esquerra's double to left field.
 
The Lions opened up the game in their half of the fourth innocently enough. Sophomore Kenny Oyama reached first on a fielder's choice and advanced to third off the bat of freshman Ben Grunberg's single to left field. With two men on LMU's Nick Sogard was hit by a pitch setting the table for Cooper Uhl and the junior responded. He sent a Holden Bernhardt offering to left field scoring both Oyama and Grunberg. With two runs already in Shearer singled up the middle scoring both Sogard and Uhl for all of LMU's runs accounted for in the inning.
 
Santa Clara managed to get a couple of runs off Frasso in their top half of the seventh. The Broncos had two men on for Connor Henriques and he drove a two RBI singled to right field, but was thrown out at second off the beautiful throw from LMU's Ryan Ruley ending the rally and inning for the Broncos.
 
The Lions got one run back in the bottom of the seventh off Grunberg's RBI single to right field pushing LMU's final tally to seven. 
 
Santa Clara made it interesting in the top of the ninth when they put their first two batters on prompting Gill to go to the pen and call on Giuseppe Benedetti. Benedetti walked the first batter he saw, loading the bases for Santa Clara, but Shearer made a tremendous play at third snagging a Brigman rocket to third and diving onto the base getting the first out. LMU shut the door on the Broncos in both the game and series on a 6-4-3 double play giving the Lions their first series sweep over Santa Clara since April 8-10, 2011.
 
The Lions return to action at Page Stadium for a mid-week game against San Diego State on Tuesday, March 19th with first pitch slated for 6:00 p.m.