Oregon State takes the series with a Hard Fought win over the Utah Utes

Oregon State earned the series win with a hard fought 2-0 win over the Utah Utes, who are making every win a fight for the Beavers. The win gives the Beavers four series win against Pac-12 opponents. The Beavers with the win improve to 21-4 at home, 14-9 in Pac-12 play and 32-14 overall. With another series win the Beavers look to be in contention for a playoff run in the Pac-12. The Utah Utes with the loss drop to 16-29.

The Beaver's Drew Rasmussen and the Utes Din Carroll engaged in a pitching duel for the first 6.1 innings of the game. With Carroll giving up one run on a Kyle Nobach flight that saw KJ Harrison tagged the base to come home and scoring to give the Beavers the 1-0 lead. Carroll was replaced by Nolan Stouder in the 7th inning despite only giving up one run in 6.1 innings pitched.

KJ Harrison fouled out to right field that almost went in the stands and saw Christian Donahue tag third, then go home to put the Beaver up 2-0 in the Bottom of the 7th. After that the Beavers never looked back. Drew Rasmussen was replaced in the top of the 9th after giving up zero runs and only 5 hits in 8.1 innings pitched his record improves to 5-3. Mitch Hickey added another save to his career.

The plays of the game was when the Utes Wyler Smith tried to make it home. Oregon State's KJ Harrison made a great throw from first base to Beaver's catcher Logan Ice to tag out Smith at home to save the Beavers from going down in the top of the 5th. The second play of the game was when the Utes Wade Guiden grounded to Beaver's shortstop Caleb Hamilton, who got it to the Beavers second basemen Christian Donahue who in turn got it in first in time to first basemen KJ Harrison for the double play and final two outs to win the game. The Beavers took the series with the 2-0 win.

The series concludes on Sunday at 12:05pm with another chance for the Beavers to go for a sweep and defend their home field. All that Utah can do is play for pride tomorrow as their losing record won't get them in the playoffs, and they can prevent a complete sweep with a win. The Utes continued to be aggressive, but can't seem to find the runs to match the Oregon State batters. Oregon State seems to just need a couple of runs to beat the Utes and hope to hold Utah's batters scoreless tomorrow to get the sweep.