Pac-10 Baseball: No. 8 Oregon State Back Home to Face USC

The series is sold-out.

Photo: OSU Athletics

CORVALLIS - After spending seven of the season’s first nine weekends on the road, Oregon State gets its longest homestand of the season as the eighth-ranked Beavers play their next 10 games at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.

OSU (23-6 overall, 0-3 Pacific-10) opens that run in its own ballpark when it plays Southern California (18-12, 1-2) in a Pac-10 series Thursday at 5:00 PM, Friday at 5:00 PM and Saturday at noon.

The extended homestand comes at an opportune time, as the Beavers were swept at 18th-ranked Arizona last weekend to start conference play.

The Beavers had spent 10 straight days on the road after opening their trip with a three-game sweep at Cal Poly.

“It’s going to be great for our ballclub to be at home for a while,” said OSU head coach Pat Casey, whose team is 59-9 at home since the start of the 2005 season. “We saw it earlier this season when we had a couple of home series after a long stretch on the road, that we do get a lot of positives from playing at home.

“We’re back in familiar surroundings, and our crowd is second to none. When they get into a ballgame, it gives us great energy and intensity in the way we play. We’re going to need that this weekend, because USC has a tremendous ballclub.”

Junior catcher Mitch Canham (.386 batting average, 5 home runs, 27 runs batted in) continues to lead OSU at the plate, along with junior first baseman Jordan Lennerton (.363, 1, 22) and senior outfielder Mike Lissman (.330, 3, 32).

Among the Pac-10 leaders, Canham is fourth in batting average, sixth in slugging percentage (.636) and third in on-base percentage (.513), while Lennerton is 10th in batting average and on-base percentage (.448).

Led by a starting trio of junior righthander Mike Stutes (6-1 record, 2.82 earned run average), junior lefthander Joe Paterson (5-2, 3.04) and junior righthander Daniel Turpen (6-1, 3.40), the Beavers lead the Pac-10 in team ERA (3.15) and opponents’ batting average (.238).

Southern California’s most recent game came when they won at California-Riverside 8-3 on March 27th.

USC opened its Pac-10 schedule at home against Arizona State from March 23rd-25th, losing 10-0 and 4-3 before winning the finale 14-13.

Leading USC’s attack have been junior infielder Matt Cusick (.340, 0, 18), freshman catcher Robert Stock (.312, 3, 12) and freshman infielder Grant Green (.302, 2, 17).

RADIO:

Live on KEJO-AM (1240) in Corvallis area; live on KUIK-AM (1360) in Portland area; live on KKNX-AM (840) in Eugene area; live on KICE-AM (940) in Bend area.

Live in Spanish on KXQR-AM (660) in Eugene area, KXPD-AM (1040) in Portland area, KLES-FM (101.7) in Yakima, Wash., area.

INTERNET AUDIO AND VIDEO:

Live via subscription on Beaver Nation Online at www.osubeavers.com

Adding comments to these stories has been disabled. View the current sports stories Salem-News Sports