June 5, 2005
Waco, Tex. - Stanford (33-24) stayed alive in the 2005 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship with a 6-2 victory over Texas-San Antonio (27-34) in an elimination game at the Waco Regional at Baylor Ballpark on Sunday. John Mayberry, Jr. (3-4, 2B, HR, 3 RBI) and Adam Sorgi (3-4, 2B, 2 RBI) had three hits each and combined to drive in five of Stanford's six runs, while Chris Lewis' solo homer accounted for the other Cardinal score. The victory moves Stanford into a rematch with TCU (41-19) in a Sunday night elimination game.
Stanford starter Matt Leva (5-2) earned the victory by not allowing a run while scattering six hits with a walk and three strikeouts over the first 5.0 innings. Matt Manship recorded his fourth save of the season and 16th of his career, striking out four of the eight batters he faced with 2.2 perfect innings of scoreless relief.
"It was a big win for us because we were facing elimination," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "The keys were good pitching performances from Matt Leva and Matt Manship, as well as obviously a huge homer by John Mayberry, Jr."
Stanford got on the scoreboard with an unearned run in the third inning without the benefit of a hit to take a 1-0 lead. Jim Rapoport walked to lead off the inning, stole second base, moved to third when Roadrunner shortstop Ryan Crew made a throwing error on Ben Summerhays' grounder and scored on a sacrifice fly by Sorgi.
Lewis' one-out solo homer in the fifth put the Cardinal ahead, 2-0.
In the sixth, Mayberry made UTSA pay for a two-out intentional walk to Jed Lowrie in front of him with a long three-run homer over the left field wall. Lowrie and Michael Taylor, who had reached earlier in the inning on a fielders choice, also scored on Mayberry's blast.
"It definitely makes you more excited, and makes you focus and concentrate more when something like that happens," said Mayberry about the intentional walk to Lowrie.
The Cardinal added another run in the top of the seventh to take a 6-0 lead when Rapoport doubled and moved to third when USTA centerfielder Sean Danielson misplayed Rapoport's ball in rightcenter. Sorgi then came through two batters later with an RBI single.
Moreno (2-4, 2B) and Crew (2-4) both had a pair of hits for the Roadrunners.
USTA starter Steven Vasquez (4-2) took the loss, allowing five runs (four earned) on four hits and a pair of walks with two strikeouts over the first 6.0 innings.
The Roadrunners avoided a shutout when Eric Moreno singled to lead off the bottom of the seventh and Michael McKennon followed with a two-run homer over the right field fence off Cardinal reliever Blake Holler (1.1 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB). UTSA got the rally restarted with one out when Ryan Saltzgaber singled before Holler walked Danielson but Manship came on to get the Cardinal out of the jam by striking out J.R. Voyles and Crew.
"We have pretty good depth," added Marquess when asked about Stanford's pitching situation for the remainder of the regional. "We've got (Mark) Romanczuk that can go tonight, and we're still in pretty good shape."
STANFORD NOTES
Stanford has come back from an opening round regional loss to win a regional once before in school history (1988) when the Cardinal lost its Northeast Regional (New Britain, Conn.) opener by a score of 5-3 to St. John's (May 27) before coming back to win four straight elimination games to win the regional (Stanford went on to win its second straight and most recent College World Series title that season, winning a total of eight elimination games by adding four CWS elimination victories to its four at the regional)
Stanford has now won at least one postseason game for 11 consecutive seasons with the last time the Cardinal not picking up a postseason victory coming when Stanford dropped two in a row at the NCAA Central Regional (Austin, TX) in 1994
Stanford's updated all-time postseason record is 117-56 (.676), while its all-time regional record improved to 64-24 (.727)
Stanford's win was its first regional victory away from Sunken Diamond since the Cardinal defeated Texas Tech by a score of 6-5 at the Midwest Regional (Wichita, KS) on May 30, 1995
Matt Leva now has a 2-0 career record and a 1.29 ERA in two postseason appearances (both starts)
Matt Manship recorded the 16th save of his career to move into a tie for third on Stanford's all-time list along with Jeff Bruksch (16, 2000-01), while also recording his team-leading fourth save of the season and the second of his career in the postseason
John Mayberry, Jr. tied season-highs with three hits and three RBI, while hitting his third career postseason
Stanford played errorless baseball for the 24th time in 57 games this season to improve its fielding percentage to .978, one point better than the school record of .977 set by the 2001 club
Stanford's pitching staff has an updated 3.82 season ERA as the Cardinal is looking to record an ERA under 4.00 for the fourth time in the last six campaigns
Stanford and Texas-San Antonio played for the first time in school history
Stanford has five players - Jed Lowrie (2B), Chris Lewis (LF/RF), John Mayberry, Jr. (1B), Chris Minaker (SS) and Adam Sorgi (3B) - that have started all 57 of the team's games to this point with Mayberry and Minaker playing every regular season inning at their respective positions