March 2, 2010
STANFORD, Calif-- Ben Clowe had two extra base hits and Stanford defeated visiting Rikkyo University (Japan) 4-2 in an exhibition game on Tuesday afternoon.
Scott Colton's seeing-eye single following a leadoff triple by Clowe gave the Cardinal some breathing room at 4-2 in the eighth. Clowe's double in the first led to an early 2-0 lead.
Rikkyo closed the gap to 3-2 in the fifth off an RBI double from Kazuki Nagahashi and nearly tied it in the seventh before reliever Chris Reed closed the door.
Stanford reliever Chris Reed, however, relieved A.J. Talt and got pinch hitter Shodai Tamura to ground out to strand a runner at third with two outs. It was the second Rikkyo batter to be stranded a third in the contest, as Nagahashi was stranded there in the fifth.
Cory Bannister got the save with 1.2 shutout innings, finishing off the work of six Stanford pitchers.
Three straight hits in the first gave Stanford a 2-0 lead, as Kellen Kiilsgaard's RBI double followed by an RBI single by Eric Smith gave Stanford an early lead. A wild pitch upped the lead to 3-1 in the third.
Stanford returns to normal action on Wednesday when it travels to UC Davis. Stanford returns home for a weekend series with UC Santa Barbara starting on Friday.
Stanford 4, Rikkyo 2 (Mar 02, 2010 at Stanford, CA)
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Rikkyo.............. 010 010 000 - 2 7 0
Stanford............ 210 000 01X - 4 9 0
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Win-Byers, Elliott Save-Bannister, Cory Loss-Okabe, Kenya T-2:13 A-153