No. 8 Oregon State Rallies to Defeat Evansville, 3-2

Daniel Turpen improved his record to 5-0 this season and 9-0 in his career.

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CORVALLIS - Mike Lissman doubled home Darwin Barney from first base with the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning as eighth-ranked Oregon State beat Evansville 3-2 in non-conference baseball Saturday afternoon at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.

Daniel Turpen pitched seven innings and allowed two earned runs for OSU (17-3 overall), which completed a sweep of the Purple Aces (9-7) and won its sixth straight game.

On Saturday in front of a crowd of 1,984, OSU came from behind for the second straight day to edge past Evansville, the defending Missouri Valley regular season and tournament champion.

“We had great crowds, and Evansville is a good club,” OSU head coach Pat Casey said of the Purple Aces, who had won five straight before coming to Corvallis and had taken a win at Mississippi earlier this season. “They really defended well today. I thought we had a chance to score more runs but they kept us from doing it.”

The game was tied 2-2 going into the bottom of the seventh inning with Turpen matched against Evansville lefthander Kai Tuomi, who entered the game with a 4-0 record and 0.86 earned run average.

The Purple Aces sent righthander Matt Brinkmann to the mound to start the bottom of the seventh and Darwin Barney greeted him with a single to left; with one out, Lissman drove his double to left-centerfield and Barney scored to make it 3-2.

OSU turned the game over to its bullpen, and righthander Jorge Reyes, lefthander Anton Maxwell and righthander Eddie Kunz retired the last six hitters in order with Kunz getting his third save of the year.

Turpen improved his record to 5-0 this season and 9-0 in his career.

In his seven innings against UE, the junior righthander allowed two runs on six hits and two walks while striking out six.

That came on the heels of a win over St. Louis last weekend in which he pitched 8 1/3 shutout innings.

“It’s been pretty much the same all year,” Turpen said. “I just haven’t gotten my pitch count up the last two weekends so I’ve been able to get into the seventh and eighth inning. Just coming out and throwing strikes is the big part. When you’ve got guys like this who swing early and put the ball in play, it helps out with the pitch count.”

Evansville had gone in front 1-0 in the top of the first inning when Ryan Barrett doubled inside first base with one out, then scored on Kasey Wahl’s single to left-center.

Oregon State took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the second as Drew George started the inning with a squib single and Dale Solomon walked, then Scotty Berke sacrificed the runners to second and third.

Erik Ammon singled to center to score George and tie the score and advance Solomon to third; Lonnie Lechelt drove a sacrifice fly to deep centerfield to plate Solomon for the lead.

Evansville again knotted the game in the top of the fourth inning as Pat Tumilty, Kern Watts and Jeremy Kuester had consecutive one-out singles to tie the game 2-2.

The Beavers threatened in the bottom of the fourth inning as they put runners at second and third with one out but Tuomi worked his way out of the jam with the score still tied.

Berke, a freshman making just his second start, was 2-for-2 for OSU and Lissman was 2-for-4 with the double and the run batted in.

Lissman has three multi-hit games in the Beavers’ last five games and has hit four doubles and a home run in that span.

The win was Oregon State’s eighth in a row at home over the past two seasons.

Since the start of the 2005 season, the Beavers are 53-9 at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.

OSU’s 17-3 record to open the season ties for the fourth-best 20-game start in school history.

The Beavers were 19-1 in 1962, 18-2 in 1951, 17-2-1 in 1968 and were also 17-3 in 2005, 1964 and 1969.

Oregon State is at home again next weekend against San Francisco in a non-conference series with games Friday at 4:00 PM, Saturday at 1:00 PM and Sunday at 1:00 PM.

All three games can be heard live on KEJO-AM (1240) in the Corvallis area, KUIK-AM (1360) in the Portland area and on LaX Sports.

Live internet video and audio is available via subscription at www.osubeavers.com.

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