June 4, 2005
Waco, Tex. - Lance Broadway pitched No. 24 TCU (41-18) to a 5-1 victory over Stanford (32-24) in the opening game of the NCAA Waco Regional at Baylor Ballpark on Saturday. Broadway improved to 15-1 on the season by allowing just one run and six hits with seven strikeouts and a walk in his fifth complete game of the campaign. The Horned Frogs scored three times in the bottom of the first inning off losing pitcher Jeff Gilmore (10-3) and never trailed.
"It was a tough game for us, we just gave them too much in the first inning," said Stanford head coach Mark Marquess. "When you're facing a pitcher the caliber of (Lance) Broadway it's difficult to give them three runs in the first inning, and we just couldn't come back from that."
Matt Carpenter (2-3, 2 RBI) had a clutch two-out bases loaded single in the first inning TCU rally. Bo Cogbill (2-2) and Stuart Musslewhite (2-4) added two hits each for the Horned Frogs, while Kyle Dahlberg hit a solo homer in the fourth and Shelby Ford drove in a run with an RBI single in the seventh.
Michael Taylor (2-3, 2 2B) and Chris Lewis (2-3) had four of Stanford's six hits. Taylor scored Stanford's only run on a wild pitch by Broadway in the fifth, snapping his string of 25 scoreless innings.Erik Davis (2.0 IP, 2 H, 2 SO) was not charged with a run in his relief outing for the Cardinal but did allow Ford's seventh inning RBI single when he relieved Gilmore (6.0 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 4 SO) after Stanford's starter allowed a leadoff double by Musslewhite to start the Horned Frog seventh.
Gilmore hit three batters and walked another in the Horned Frogs' first. Musslewhite started the TCU rally with a leadoff single before Gilmore hit Ford and Chad Huffman to load the bases. Musslewhite scored on an RBI groundout by Matt McGurik for the game's first run and Gilmore walked Keith Conlon to reload the bags. Gilmore struck out Austin Adams for the second out of the inning but Carpenter came through with his key two-run single. Gilmore then hit his third batter of the frame when he plucked Cogbill to load the bases again but struck out Dahlberg with the bases loaded to avoid further damage.
"They got those three base runners and that big ground ball base hit (by Carpenter) to score two guys there, and I give them a lot of credit for winning that spot," said Gilmore. "That was pretty much the game even though we didn't know it at that point, that was the game right there with the way that Broadway was pitching."
Gilmore would not allow another hit until the fourth when Cogbill singled with one out but was erased trying to steal second before Dahlberg hit a two-out solo homer.
Taylor scored Stanford's only run of the contest in the fifth when he doubled to lead off the inning, moved to third on a Jim Rapoport groundout and scored on Broadway's wild pitch. Lewis followed with a single to hopefully restart the rally but Broadway got Ben Summerhays to groundout and struck out Adam Sorgi to end the threat.
Broadway would actually retire eight in a row before another single by Lewis to lead off the eighth ended the run. But Broadway again squashed the Cardinal rally by getting Summerhays to ground into a double play before striking out Sorgi to end the inning.
Jed Lowrie managed a two-out single off in the top of the ninth but John Hester grounded out to Musselwhite at short to end the game.
"We didn't hit that many balls very hard, and that's a credit to Broadway," explained Marquess. "He did a good job, changed his speeds well and his control was good in the strike zone, and obviously his curve ball is outstanding."
Stanford will next play a regional elimination game on Sunday (11 am, CT/9 am, PT) against the fourth-seeded UT-San Antonio (27-33), who was an 8-3 loser to top-seeded Baylor (40-21) on Saturday evening. Baylor, the No. 4 national seed in the 2005 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship and No. 8 ranked team in the country Baseball America will play TCU Sunday in a winners' bracket game at approximately 3 pm, CT/1 pm, PT. The winner of Sunday's Stanford/Texas-San Antonio contest will play the Baylor/TCU loser in an elimination game Sunday at approximately 7 pm, CT/5 pm, PT.
STANFORD NOTES
Stanford dropped the first game of an NCAA regional for the first time since 1998 (May 21 - Loyola Marymount 6, at Stanford 2), snapping a string of six straight NCAA regional opening victories
Stanford's all-time postseason record dropped to 116-56, while its all-time regional record fell to 63-24
Chris Minaker had his career-best 13-game hit streak snapped (tied for the longest by a Stanford player in 2005) by going 0-for-3 with a walk
Stanford's one error caused the team's fielding percentage to fall one point to .977, equaling the school record of set by the 2001 club
Stanford's pitching staff has an updated 3.86 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 TCU 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) - start all 56 of the team's regular season games with Mayberry and Minaker playing every regular season inning at their respective positions