April 11, 2008
Corvallis, Ore. - John Wallace singled home Jason Ogata with one out in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift Oregon State (16-10, 4-3 Pac-10) to a 10-9 victory over No. 10 Stanford (15-11-1, 4-3 Pac-10) in the opener of a three-game series at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field on Friday. The Beavers pounded out 19 hits in the contest to hand Stanford's its third extra inning loss in the last six games.
Oregon State took an early 5-0 lead with five runs in the bottom of the first inning before Stanford would score nine of the contests next 10 runs to go ahead 9-6 after five and a half innings. Oregon State was able to send the contest into extra innings by scoring twice in the seventh and once more in the eighth.
The game featured five home runs with Oregon State blasting three and the Cardinal going deep twice.
Ryan Ortiz and Jordan Lennerton accounted for all five Beaver runs in the first, while Drew George pulled the Beavers to within 9-8 with his two-run shot in the seventh.
Stanford got three runs back in the top of the second when Sean Ratliff connected on a three-run blast for his team-leading ninth homer of the season. Cord Phelps sent one out of the park to score three Cardinal runs in the fifth to tie the game at 6-6.
Oregon State had four players - Lennerton (3-4, HR, 3 RBI), Wallace (3-5, RBI), Joey Wong (3-6, 2B, RBI) and Chris Hopkins (3-6, 2B) - with three hits each. George (2-5, 3B, HR, 2 RBI) and Ogata (2-5, 2 2B) added two hits each, while all nine of the Beaver starters had at least one hit.
Ratliff (2-5, HR, 4 RBI) and Phelps (2-5, HR, 4 RBI) both had a pair of hits, one homer and four RBI, while Zach Jones (2-3) also had a two-hit contest.
Oregon State's Kraig Sitton (2.1 IP, 3 SO) earned the victory with an impressive relief outing.
Stanford's Austin Yount (1.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 SO) took the loss.
Oregon State's five-run first started when Wong singled with one out and Ogata followed with a double before Ortiz went deep to right field. George tripled with two outs a pair of batters later before Lennerton connected on his blast to end a short outing for Stanford starter Danny Sandbrink (0.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 5 ER).
Ratliff's second inning blast that cut the Oregon State lead to 5-3 followed an infield single by Jason Castro and a walk to Randy Molina.The Beavers got one run back in the third inning on a sacrifice fly by Lennerton that followed an Ortiz walk, a Wallace single and a fielder's choice by George.
Phelps' game-tying three run shot in the fifth came after Yount and Jones led off with back-to-back singles and moved to second and third on Jake Schlander's sacrifice bunt.
Stanford took its first lead of the game with three more runs in the sixth. Molina doubled with one out to end Oregon State starter Mike Stutes' outing (5.1 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO). Ratliff then singled up the middle to score Molina and put the Cardinal ahead, 7-6. Jones, Schlander and Phelps came up with three consecutive singles later in the inning to score the other two runs.
After pulling to within 9-8 on George's two-run shot in the seventh that followed a two-out Wallace single and ended an impressive outing by Stanford reliever David Stringer (6.0 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 SO), the Beavers got one more run in the eighth to tie the game at 9-9 when Hopkins singled and scored on a double by Joey Wong. Drew Storen (1.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 2 SO) was able to get out of a jam later in the inning to keep the score when he struck out George with the bases loaded to end the inning.
The loss dropped Stanford one game behind league leader Arizona State in the Pac-10 race and into a three-way tie for second place in the conference with California and Oregon State.
Stanford and Oregon State will continue the series on Saturday and Sunday with start times scheduled each day at 1 pm, PT. Neither team has announced a probable starting pitcher for either contest.