NCAA Baseball: No. 5 Oregon State Completes Sweep of San Francisco

It was the third time this season that the Beavers have rallied to win a game in the eighth or ninth inning.

Photo: OSU Athletics

CORVALLIS - Drew George doubled home the tying run with two outs in the ninth inning, then scored the game-winner on Jordan Lennerton’s single as fifth-ranked Oregon State beat San Francisco 3-2 in non-conference baseball Sunday afternoon at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.

The Beavers (20-3 overall) stretched their winning streak to a season-high nine games.

On Sunday, the Beavers completed a sweep of San Francisco (9-12), the defending West Coast Conference champion, after being limited to just one hit through eight innings by Don righthander Tommy Peale.

“There are nine innings in a game for a reason,” Lennerton said. “You don’t have to do it all in the first five innings; you’d like to, but we can handle being down late in the game and still come back and put up some runs.”

It was the third time this season that the Beavers have rallied to win a game in the eighth or ninth inning.

“We just need to be focused on what it takes to win,” OSU head coach Pat Casey said.

“Sometimes you can play well and lose, and that’s disappointing, because what you’re really trying to do is win. You’re not really trying to outhit or outpitch your opponent. Certainly today, in the statistics of baseball, they did a much better job than we did but on the scoreboard, we won. That’s what I told our guys to focus on, was the fact that playing a team sport is about winning, it’s not about anything other than that and we found a way to win.”

Going into the bottom of the ninth, OSU trailed 2-1 and the Dons summoned lefthander Cole Stipovich, who had allowed just two runs on three hits in 5 1/3 innings of relief during Saturday’s game.

Stipovich retired the first two Beavers of the inning, then walked Mitch Canham on a full-count pitch.

That brought George to the plate, and he fell behind in the count no balls, two strikes.

On the next pitch, he drove the ball to the fence in right-centerfield just out of the reach of rightfielder Luke Sommer and centerfielder Lucas DeLong; Canham beat the throw to the plate and the game was tied 2-2.

“I was just looking for a pitch outside to hit a single to the right side of the field, and he left it up a little bit,” George said. “I got barrel on it and drove it to the gap far enough for Mitch to score.”

San Francisco then turned to righthander Brian Anderson, who walked Jason Ogata to put runners at first and second for Lennerton.

Lennerton worked the count to two balls, two strikes, then lined the next pitch down the rightfield line to plate George with the winning run.

“He threw me a slider on the first pitch that was up, and I’m happy that he did because it gave me a chance to see what he had,” Lennerton said.

“Then he threw me a couple of fastballs; once I had two strikes on me I just tried to cover the plate and make sure I could handle the outside pitch. He threw me a slider that came in and I pulled it to rightfield. That’s what every baseball player dreams about. I love having the crowd behind me and my teammates up on the top step and everybody supporting you, and knowing you can do it.”

Lennerton’s hit made a winner of Eddie Kunz, who struck out the side in the top of the ninth.

OSU starter Daniel Turpen had gone 7 2/3 innings, allowing tworuns on seven his and no walks while recording a career-high seven strikeouts; it was the third straight start in which he had pitched at least seven innings.

“Turp did an outstanding job today, just like he has all year,” Lennerton said. “He keeps them off balance and then blows it by some guys. He’s definitely a guy we go to in big situations and he’s come through for us.”

Peale, who had thrown just three innings for the Dons prior to Sunday, got no decision after pitching eight innings and allowing one run on one hit and no walks, striking out six.

He did hit four batters, including three in a row in the bottom of the second inning to set up Scott Santschi’s run-scoring groundout that tied the game 1-1.

“He had great control,” Lennerton said of Peale. “He kept us off-balance with his changeup, which had a lot of movement. His breaking ball was okay, but he had great control of his fastball.”

San Francisco took a 2-1 lead in the top of the fifth inning when DeLong led off with a single to right, stole second with one out and then scored on Derek Poppert’s two-out single up the middle.

USF had jumped to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning when Sommer homered to right, his second homer of the series.

OSU’s nine-game winning streak is the Beavers’ longest since a 10-gamer late in the 2005 season that carried Oregon State to the first of back-to-back Pac-10 championships.

The win kept OSU unbeaten in six home games this season, and extended the Beavers’ winning streak in its own ballpark to 11 games over two seasons.

Since the start of the 2005 season, Oregon State is 59-9 at home.

OSU now visits Cal Poly for a series next Saturday at 6:00 PM, Sunday at 1:00 PM and Monday at 1:00 PM.

The Beavers then open Pac-10 play at Arizona from March 30th-April 1st before returning home to play Southern California from April 5th-7th.

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