Oregon State Hammers Past San Francisco In Home Opener

Oregon State made an uninspiring scheduling choice for their home opener, normally one of the games and weekends you want to be memorable, when they elected to buck both the Pac-12 Tournament and the state 5A tournament down the street at Gill Coliseum, and then by scheduling an uninspiring San Francisco squad that is predictably struggling massively. Playing the game on a cold, but not as rainy as predicted night, with temperatures in the 40s, wasn't anything that would warm anyone to the occasion either.

Fortunately for the 4th ranked Beavers, Logan Ice and Kyle Nobach have seen this story before, and they were as hot as the weather was cold. The combination was too much for the Dons from the West Coast Conference, who stumbled into the game with a 2-12 mark.

Oregon State scratched out a run in the first inning, but did their relevant work in the 2nd and 6th innings. Nobach led off the 2nd with a single, and scored on KJ Harrison's triple, and Harrison followed Nobach in on Steven Kwan's RBI single to open a 3-0 lead.

San Francisco scratched out a run in the top of the 6th, but any thoughts of upset were quickly quashed in the bottom of the inning. Ice, last week's Pac-12 Player of the Week, and Trevor Morrison got things going with back to back triples, and Nobach backed that up with a 2 run home run. Christian Donahue kept it going with a single, and Cayden Grenier picked him up with an RBI single, and it was 7-1 Beavers. Oregon State added another run when Ice led off the 7th with another home run.

San Francisco made it a little more nerve-wracking than expected with a 4 run uprising in the 8th, getting 3 consecutive singles after a 1 out walk, picking on Oregon State reliever Scotland Church.

Luke Heimlich gave up a 2 RBI single before he could get out of the jam, but all that did was set up a save opportunity for Max Engelbrekt, who picked up his 6th save of the season to close out the 8-5 win.

Drew Rasmussen went 6 solid innings, and went to 3-0 for the season, while San Francisco starter Anthony Shew suffered the loss, and slipped to 0-2 for the season.

Ice went 3 of 3, all for extra bases, and Nobach 3 of 4 at the plate.

Oregon State improved to 11-1 with the win, and will continue their series against San Francisco tomorrow afternoon at 1:35, when the forecast is much soggier, calling for an even rainier day, and one without a late day letup like happened this evening.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.co