March 3, 2002
Stanford, Calif. - No. 1 Stanford (12-4) completed its first three-game sweep of the season with an 11-3 victory over Cal Poly (9-14-1) in a non-conference game at Sunken Diamond on Sunday. John Hudgins (2-0) recorded new career-highs in strikeouts (8) and innings pitched (6.1) to earn the victory in his first start of the season. Chris O'Riordan (3-4, 2B) and Arik VanZandt (3-4, SB) led Stanford's 15-hit attack as the Cardinal picked up double-digit hits for the 14th time in 16 games this season and improved its team batting average to .347.
"It's nice to get a sweep," said Stanford head coach Marquess. "It's tough to a sweep another team, but we got a couple of big innings in the series that really hurt them. John Hudgins did a phenomenal job for us today. It helps to have somebody step up and pitch well in that third starting spot."
Stanford jumped out to a 9-0 lead with a pair of runs in the first inning and seven more in the second.
O'Riordan led off the bottom of the first inning with a double before coming around to score on a passed ball and a wild pitch. Jason Cooper had a sacrifice fly to score Sam Fuld with the other run in the inning.
Carlos Quentin walked to start Stanford's seven-run second inning and scored on an RBI single by O'Riordan. Scott Dragicevich also scored on the play when Cal Poly left fielder Brian Haskell failed to come up with O'Riordan's single cleanly. Ryan Garko followed with a two-RBI double two batters later before scoring on an RBI double by Jason Cooper to give the Cardinal a 7-0 lead. The final two runs of the inning came on an RBI single by Chris Carter and an RBI triple from Quentin.
Stanford's seven-run second inning was the ninth time the Cardinal has scored five or more runs in an inning this season.
The score remained 9-0 until the seventh inning as Hudgins faced only one batter over the minimum and did not allow a runner to reach second base through the first six innings, giving up only singles to Tony Alcantar in the first inning and Adam Leavitt to lead off the sixth.
"I had good off-speed stuff today and located my fastball well," said Hudgins. "I felt good out there on the mound."
Cal Poly got on the scoreboard with three runs in the top of the seventh inning. The Mustangs loaded the bases off Hudgins on a leadoff walk to Scott Anderson before singles by Kyle Wilson and Haskell. Jason Barringer greeted reliever Darin Naatjes with a two-RBI double before Cal Poly scored its final run on an RBI groundout by Nick Snow.
Hudgins (6.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 8 SO) was charged with all three runs in the seventh.Stanford added a pair of insurance runs in the bottom of the seventh. Brian Hall beat out an infield single with one out, stole second base and scored on an RBI double by Dragicevich. VanZandt finished the afternoon's scoring with an RBI-single to score Dragicevich.
Drew Ehrlich relieved Naatjes in the top of the eighth with no outs and two runs on base before the reliever retired all five batters he faced, including a double play ball in the eighth.
Cooper (2-3, 2B, 2 RBI) and Dragicevich (2-4, 2B) had a pair of hits each for the Cardinal as Cooper hit safely in his season-high eighth consecutive game. Garko extended his season-high hit streak to nine games with his two-RBI double in the second inning.
Stanford's Donny Lucy saw his string of 12 consecutive games with at least one RBI come to an end as he was 1-for-5 with a stolen base.
Cal Poly did not have a player with more than one hit.
Mustang starter Kevin Correia (3-2) was charged with the loss, allowing nine runs and 11 hits in 6.0 innings.
Stanford will next be in action when the Cardinal travels to California for a three-game non-conference series next Friday-Sunday, March 8-10 (2 pm, 1 pm, 1 pm).