Turpen, Oregon State Blank St. Louis

Turpen allowed five hits and no walks while striking out a career-high six as he improved his record to 4-0 this season.

OSU pitcher Daniel Turpen Photo: OSU Athletics

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Daniel Turpen pitched 8 1/3 scoreless innings for Oregon State and Mike Lissman delivered a pair of run-scoring doubles as the 15th-ranked Beavers beat St. Louis 2-0 on Sunday afternoon at Olsen Field in the Domino’s Pizza Aggie Baseball Classic.

Turpen and Mark Grbavac combined to pitch a five-hitter for OSU (13-3 overall).

Against St. Louis (1-8), Turpen turned in the longest outing of his OSU career; the junior righthander’s previous high had been 6 2/3 innings in a win over top-ranked Rice at the 2006 College World Series.

In Sunday’s 8 1/3 innings, Turpen allowed five hits and no walks while striking out a career-high six as he improved his record to 4-0 this season.

“As a starter, you want to go as many innings as you can, but today was a little surprising,” Turpen said of pitching in to the ninth inning on the first weekend of March. “I thought I could get a couple more outs, but you’ve got to come out when it’s your turn to come out.”

Turpen retired the last eight hitters he faced, including striking out the side in the eighth inning. From the middle of the fourth inning on, he sat down 15 of the final 16 Billikens to face him.

“That’s probably one of the better games I’ve had, as far as location, since I’ve been at OSU,” Turpen said, comparing it to a win at Georgia earlier this season when he allowed just three hits in six innings.

“Hat’s off to Turpen,” Lissman said. “He was lights-out all day. Our pitching staff has been great; pitching and defense wins games and that’s what won it for us today.”

Grbavac, a sophomore righthander, finished up the game with a pair of strikeouts to earn his first career save for Oregon State.

Grbavac fanned Casey Moore and Bill Musselman, the third and fourth hitters in the Billiken order.

Lissman drove in the runs that provided the Beavers’ with their margin of victory with two-out doubles in the fourth and sixth innings.

In the fourth, Billiken righthander Ryan Bird hit Mitch Canham with a pitch with two out.

Lissman then drove a one-ball, one-strike to left-centerfield into a strong wind blowing in; it sailed just over the reach of SLU leftfielder L.J. Watson for a two-base hit that scored Canham from first for a 1-0 OSU lead.

Lissman -- who on Saturday had drilled a ball that looked headed for the parking lot beyond leftfield, only to see it die at the edge of the warning track -- knew he had hit it well but didn’t think it would carry over the outfielders converging in left-centerfield.

“No – not after the one I hit Saturday,” Lissman said.

“It’s tough here with that wind blowing in; it seems like it’s impossible to get a ball out of the park. I didn’t think it would get over them. He (Watson) had a good bead on it and just about made a good catch.”

In the sixth, Drew George led off with a double down the rightfield line and then went to third on Darwin Barney’s flyout to rightfield.

St. Louis played its infield in, and Canham’s groundout to first couldn’t plate George.

Lissman came up and lined the ball into right-center for another double to score George and make it 2-0.

St. Louis’ biggest threat came in the top of the third inning against Turpenm with the score still 0-0.

With one out, Tom Pinnell grounded an infield single to the left side; L.J. Watson then grounded a ball back to the mound that Turpen got a glove on but couldn’t corral for another infield single to put runners at first and second with one out.

That sent the Billikens back to the top of the order and Ryan Crespi’s groundout advanced both runners; Turpen got Ryan Bennett to ground out to end the inning, though.

In the fourth, the Billikens again advanced a runner to third with two out in a 0-0 tie, but Turpen struck out Brandon Parsons to end the inning.

That started a string of seven straight hitters that Turpen retired.

Jason Ogata was 2-for-3 with a double for Oregon State; his double, like Lissman’s in the fourth inning, was hit into the wind to left but still got over the outfielders.

Half the Beavers’ eight hits in the game were doubles.

The win was the second shutout of the season for the Beavers; the other came when four OSU pitchers combined to no-hit Hawaii-Hilo on Opening Day in a 5-0 victory.

OSU has allowed three or fewer runs in nine of its 16 games this season.

Following Monday’s game at Texas A&M -- Oregon State’s 17th straight contest away from home to start the season -- OSU will open its home schedule against Evansville in a series with games Thursday at 4:00 PM, Friday at 4:00 PM and Saturday at 1:00 PM.

“It’s going to be nice to not to have to travel next weekend and to finally play on our own field,” Turpen said.

Oregon State concludes the tournament against host Texas A&M on Monday at 12:30 PM PST.

The game can be heard live on KEJO-AM (1240) in the Corvallis area and KUIK-AM (1360) in the Portland area, and via subscription on the internet at www.osubeavers.com.

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