Davis, Killer Bs Combine To Down The Tree

Final Score: Oregon St. 7 Stanford 3

Oregon St.'s Dylan Davis delivered a 3 RBI double to start a decisive 5 run 5th inning, and added an insurance run after tripling with his next swing of the bat 2 innings later. It was ample offensive support for the Beavers' "Killer Bs", as Matt Boyd out-dueled Stanford's Mark Appel, and Tony Bryant closed the deal on the 7-3 win.

Oregon St. took a 1-0 lead right off the bat when Tyler Smith led off with a grounder, and not only reached when Stanford 3rd baseman Alex Blandino threw the ball away, he went all the way to 3rd while the ball bounced around in foul territory.

Smith scored on Michael Conforto's ground-out, but the Beavers couldn't capitalize after putting runners in scoring position in both the 2nd and 3rd innings, and as a result, Stanford took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the 4th inning when Blandino doubled into the right field corner with the bases loaded, driving in all 3 Cardinal base runners.

Oregon St. answered immediately, when Max Gordon was hit by a pitch to leadoff the 5th inning, and a single by Andy Peterson and a walk to Conforto loaded the bases, setting up Davis' game determining double off the fence in right field.

After loading the bases again, Kavin Keyes singled to drive in both Davis and Danny Hayes, making it 6-3 Beavers.

Appel was gone after the inning, after throwing 103 pitches, and took the loss, dropping him to 8-4 for the season, after having had the Beavers hand him his roughest outing of the season. Appel, the nation's leader in strikeouts only got 4 Ks against Oregon St., and the 3 walks the Beavers drew in the 4th inning were as many as Appel allowed in any game all season.

Appel hadn't allowed more than 3 earned runs all season, before the 5 in the 4th tonight, in addition to the 5 total walks the Beavers drew.

Davis tripled to lead off the 7th on the first pitch he saw, and Ryan Barnes drove him in with a fly ball for an insurance run.

Staked to a 4 run lead, Boyd handed the ball over to Bryant, who had got the win Wednesday over Portland, and though he had to work out of a bit of a jam when Stanford put 2 runners on in the 7th, with one of the 6 strikeouts he served up, including 4 straight until the game ending ground out to Peterson, Bryant finished strong in backing up Boyd, who improved to 10-2 for the season.

In addition to Davis' pair of extra base hits, Peterson had 3 hits on the night, and both Jake Rodriguez and Danny Hayes had multiple hits as well. Hayes and Conforto both drew 2 walks as well.

The Beavers win came despite some good efforts by the Cardinal, including a 4 hit night by Brian Ragira, and 4 double plays turned by the Stanford infield.

Oregon St. impressed the capacity crowd of 3,576 at Sunken Diamond with a variety of web gems of their own, as Conforto, Gordon, Davis, Hayes, Smith, and Peterson all came up with rally quelling big catches, to go along with out-hitting Stanford 11-9.

Gordon's was arguably the best of the lot:

It led to the Stanford broadcast crew summing the game up by saying "It just shows you how good Oregon St. is."

"There's nothing like knowing the guys behind you have your back," Boyd added.

Oregon St. improved to 39-8 for the season, and 18-4 in the Pac-12, finally wiping out the 1/2 game deficit to Oregon that has persisted for several weeks.

25th ranked Stanford slipped to 26-18, and 11-11 in conference, but held on to 5th place after UCLA downed Arizona 10-2.

The series continues tomorrow, with a 2 PM start.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com