The Fresno State baseball team was cruising along, batting around in a five-run first inning and a six-run fifth and basically beating up a USC team that was playing some dreadful baseball.

But in what has been a rough start to the season for the Bulldogs, even a 14-3 victory over the Trojans on Sunday before 1,800 at Beiden Field took a downward turn.

They managed to win their first series in three tries this season to get to 3-7 and win a series from the Trojans for the first time since taking two of three at the NCAA West Regional in 1988, but in doing so lost center fielder Jordan Luplow for what could be an extended period with a left (non-throwing) shoulder injury.

Luplow was hurt making a diving attempt at a ball hit to left center by the Trojans' Jake Hernandez in the sixth. He didn't come up with the ball and didn't get up for a time. He is to have an MRI today.

"To get two out of three from a quality program like this, that makes you feel good, (but) losing Luplow puts a little bit of a damper on it," coach Mike Batesole said.

"The clubhouse was a little quiet. The dugout got pretty quiet in the seventh, eighth and ninth inning. You'd like to be able to celebrate this a little bit, but I think until we find out what happens with him (Monday) night I think we're probably going to take a step backward before we get too happy."

With Mountain West Conference play starting March 15 against San Diego State, Batesole and the Bulldogs might have to find some answers without one of their best players.

Luplow was hitting .226 coming in, but had an on-base percentage of .385 and was leading Fresno State with eight runs scored.

"He always gets the offense going, batting either leadoff or the No. 2 hole, he always gets on base," said Aaron Judge, who went 4 for 6 on Sunday with four RBIs and is now 12 for 15 (.800) in Sunday games against UC Santa Barbara, at Stanford and against USC.

"He works counts, does anything he can to get on base. We need him in that lineup."

When that will be remains a question.

"Even if it is a separation, those can be touchy," Batesole said. "Sometimes it's two weeks, sometimes it's six weeks, sometimes they have to do surgery and you're out for the year."

Before Luplow went down, the Bulldogs were taking advantage of the Trojans, who had a Little League look through much of the game.

Garrett Stubbs opened the game with a double and then inexplicably tried to advance to third on a ground ball in front of him and was thrown out easily at third by shortstop Louie Payetta.

USC also had another runner picked off of first base in that first inning and throughout a pitching staff that needed a ridiculous 183 pitches to get 24 outs.

Only 99 of those pitches were strikes, but when the Trojans' pitchers did manage to get one near the plate, the Bulldogs usually got a good swing at it.

Judge had four hits in his first four at-bats, driving in two runs in the third with a triple to right and two more in the fifth with a double to right center. Austin Wynns drove in three runs, Chris Mariscal went 2 for 4 with two RBI and Brody Russell and Jake Alvarez both had two hits -- the first two of the season for Alvarez, who was 0 for 19 coming in.

"Nice turnaround," Batesole said. "Outstanding plate discipline early and, as we've talked about before, those walks that they give us, they're not mistakes until we touch home. When you turn those walks into runs, that's the kind of thing W's are made of.

"Obviously, we weren't very good the first couple weeks and all of a sudden this weekend, Saturday and (Sunday), we were pretty good. We'll see if we can turn that into a nice run."

UP NEXT: FRESNO STATE VS. SAN JOSE STATE

Tuesday: 6:35 p.m. at Beiden Field (KFIG AM 940)