April 14, 2008
Stanford, Calif. - No. 10 Stanford (18-11-1) won its third straight game with a 3-1 win over Santa Clara (19-14) in a non-conference game at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond on Monday evening. Max Fearnow (4.0 IP, 3 H, 4 SO) earned the victory as the first of two relievers before Drew Storen (1.0 IP, 1 BB, 1 SO) recorded the final three outs in the ninth to earn his third save of the season. Danny Sandbrink (4.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB) was also effective as the starter, allowing only a solo homer to Matt Long with two outs in the top of third inning.
Stanford also scored its first run of the game on a solo shot when Sean Ratliff connected on his 11th home run of the season to lead off the bottom of the second inning.
After Long's third inning blast tied the score at 1-1, Stanford came right back with another run in its half of the third to take a 2-1 advantage when Brent Milleville came through with a clutch two-out RBI single to score Cord Phelps, who had singled with one out, moved to second on one of Toby Gerhart's three walks and third when Jason Castro flied out to Nathan Faulkner in center field.
Stanford scored the game's only other run in the bottom of the fourth when Ben Clowe singled to lead off the inning, moved to second two batters later on Zach Jones' sacrifice bunt and scored on an RBI single up the middle from Jake Schlander.
Neither team would score again as pitching took over with Santa Clara reliever Justin Kuehn (3.0 IP, 2 H, 4 SO) joining Fearnow and Storen with scoreless outings.
Santa Clara starter Matt Wickswat (5.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 4 SO) gave up all three Stanford runs and took the loss.
Clowe (2-3, 2B) and Santa Clara's Gabe Alcantar (2-3) were the only players in the game with more than one hit.
Santa Clara made the game interesting in the top of the ninth by putting runners on first and second with no outs. Evan LeBlanc started the inning with an infield single before Fearnow was removed in favor of Storen, who promptly walked Tommy Medica to put the tying run on base and the go-ahead run at the plate. But Storen recovered to retire Ryan Conan and Nathan Faulkner on back-to-back fly outs before striking out Geoff Klein to end the contest.
Stanford is scheduled to host San Francisco in a non-conference game at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond on Wednesday (6 pm, PT) before returning to Pac-10 action with a three-game series at UCLA this Friday-Sunday (6 pm, 2 pm, 1 pm, PT).
A complete recap will follow.