OSU Heads for River City Classic Baseball Tournament

OSU is coming off the championship of the Coca-Cola Classic, held last weekend in Surprise, Ariz.

Salem-News.com SPORTS

CORVALLIS - Oregon State goes on the road again this weekend as the baseball schedule takes the Beavers to the River City Classic in Sacramento and Davis, Calif.

The Beavers (9-1 overall) will play California-Davis (3-5) at UCD on Friday at 2:00 PM, against St. Mary’s (Calif.) (6-8) at Sacramento State on Saturday at 10:00 AM, and Sacramento State (1-7) on the Hornets’ home field Sunday at 2:00 PM.

OSU is coming off the championship of the Coca-Cola Classic, held last weekend in Surprise, Ariz.

The Beavers were beaten by Gonzaga 6-5 in their first game, but came back to beat Arizona State 12-4 in an early season matchup of Pac-10 favorites and then top Missouri 9-2.

In the three national rankings released this week, the Beavers moved up to ninth on the lists of both Baseball America magazine and Collegiate Baseball newspaper, and climbed to seventh in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll.

OSU was ranked 15th in the USA Today/ESPN preseason coaches poll, which will next be updated in late February.

Now it’s back on the road for the fourth trip out of five in a row to start the season.

OSU gets to remain in the Pacific time zone this time around after having played in the Hawaiian, Eastern and Mountain time zones to start the season.

Before playing their home-opener March 8th against Evansville, the Beavers will also get to cross off the Central time zone next week when they play in a tournament at Texas A&M.

“The early season is a challenge in a lot of ways,” OSU head coach Pat Casey said.

“Part of it is playing some very tough teams, and part of it is the travel. Our guys have done a good job so far of keeping their mind on the task at hand, taking care of their business and having some success. “With the number of new people we’re working into the lineup, that’s been big. We have a great, great deal of work still to do to get where we want to be as a club, but we’re still managing to position ourselves pretty well for what could happen down the road. But if we’re going to keep having some success, we’re going to have to keep getting better, and that begins this wekeend.”

Through three weekends of play, the Beavers swinging the hottest bats are junior catcher Mitch Canham (.517 batting average, 1 home run, 11 runs batted in); freshman infielder Joey Wong (.433, 0, 3), who has a six-game hitting streak; sophomore outfielder Koa Kahalehoe (.368, 0, 5); junior infielder Drew George (.353, 0, 1) and junior outfielder Braden Wells (.350, 0, 0).

On the mound, the Beavers’ rotation thus far of junior righthander Mike Stutes (1-0 record, 4.41 earned run average), junior lefthander Joe Paterson (2-0, 2.04) and junior righthander Daniel Turpen (2-0, 3.00) has averaged over 5 1/3 innings per start in the early going.

UC-Davis took two of three games from Santa Clara last weekend, losing 11-3 at home, then winning 7-5 on the road and 3-2 at home.

Top hitters for the Aggies so far this season have been junior utility player Evan Hudson (.500, 0, 2), senior outfielder Aaron Hanke (.323, 1, 1), sophomore catcher Jacob Jeffries (.320, 0, 4) and junior infielder Daniel Descalso (.313, 1, 6).

St. Mary’s swept Utah Valley State in a home series last weekend by scores of 16-1, 13-3 and 3-2.

Leading the Gaels at the plate have been freshman infielder Randy Wells (.414, 0, 15), freshman utility player Anthony Aliotti (.400, 0, 12), and freshman utility player Kyle Jensen (.388, 0, 9).

Sacramento State won one of three games against South Dakota State in a home series last weekend, losing 2-1 and 15-3 before winning the finale 13-4.

Pacing the Hornets’ attack have been senior outfielder Montana Dye (.393, 0, 2), junior infielder David Flores (.357, 0, 4), senior infielder Patrick Cummins (.346, 1, 5) and junior outfielder Ryan Blair (.324, 1, 9).

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