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Cardinal Responds

Box Score

STANFORD, Calif. – No. 3 Stanford responded emphatically with a 13-3 win over Arizona to even the series, 1-1, on Saturday night at Sunken Diamond.

"Tonight was a great answer. Will gave us five great innings and our offense coming back with four in the bottom of the first set the tone for the entire game," said the Clarke and Elizabeth Nelson Director of Baseball David Esquer. "I thought we did a nice job of consistently scoring runs and holding their offense down in the middle innings, and Bellafronto's home run was a big separator for us in the fifth."

Nick Bellafronto hit a grand slam, Will Matthiessen (W, 4-1) earned the win while finishing 3-for-5 with three runs and a home run and Andrew Daschbach reached base four times with a pair of doubles, two RBI and two runs. Tim Tawa drove in a pair and Kyle Stowers, who reached base three times, also homered, giving the Cardinal (30-7-0, 14-3-0 Pac-12) 33 home runs in 13 games. After Arizona started with two runs in the top of the first, the Cardinal replied with 11 unanswered runs, putting the game out of reach after six innings.

The Wildcats (19-21-0, 7-13-0) struck first with a pair of runs in the opening frame. Austin Wells' triple scored Matthew Dyer with Wells crossing home on a groundout to shortstop, but the Cardinal started hot with four runs in the home half, all with two outs. Daschbach brought in a pair with a lined-shot off the wall in left and Brueser's double down the left-field line made it 4-2, Cardinal. Matthiessen delivered a shutdown inning in the second, striking out the side.

Matthiessen worked another clean inning in the third before Tawa's sacrifice fly in the bottom half made it 5-2, scoring Brandon Wulff. Matthiessen continued to deal, hanging zeroes on the board in the fourth and fifth innings, including a one-two-three fifth, setting up Stanford's five-run fifth, all runs coming with two outs.

Brueser drew a bases-loaded walk before Bellafronto's second home run of the week, a no-doubt moon shot into the trees beyond the fence in left to clear the bases and make it 10-2, Stanford.

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After a issuing a lead-off walk in the sixth, Matthiessen departed for Jacob Palisch, who stranded two runners with one strikeout for Stanford's fifth-consecutive zero on the board. Matthiessen's final line included two earned runs on five hits with five strikeouts in 5.0+ innings pitched.

In the bottom half, Stowers led off the inning with another Cardinal home run, a solo shot to right field to push the lead to nine. Matthiessen's solo shot made it 12-2 before Tawa drove in his second run of the day, a two-out single to center bringing home Daschbach.

The Wildcats responded with a run in the seventh before Zach Grech replaced Palisch with the bases loaded – Grech escaped the jam with three pitches, getting the inning-ending double play to limit the damage to one run. Stanford then left the bases loaded in the home half with Matthiessen flying out to right field for the final out.

Grech worked a scoreless eighth, Stanford went down in order in the bottom half and Carson Rudd came on to work the ninth. The Wildcats loaded the bases, but Rudd got a one-two-three double play to end the game and strand three more runners.

The three-game series wraps up on Sunday at 1 p.m. when Erik Miller takes the mound for Stanford. Live streaming and live statistics will be available at GoStanford.com.

Cardinal Notes

  • Stanford scored 11 runs with two outs.
  • In the last 13 games, Stanford has 33 home runs with multiple homers in 11 of those games.
  • Stanford played error-free defense for the 13th time this season.
  • Daschbach's hit streak extends to seven games while his reached-base streak reaches nine games.
  • Matthiessen's reached-base streak extends to 10 games. Matthiessen has 10 hits in four games as the starting pitcher.