Washington Avoids Sweep Against Oregon State In Extra Innings

Peanuts' Snoopy started a number of his novels with the line "It was a dark and stormy night...", and that applied to Washington's sweep evading 3-2 win over Oregon State Sunday night at Goss Stadium in Corvallis in 12 innings.

After the Beavers had overcome the loss of Drew Rasmussen to control the weekend series, played out mostly in beautiful baseball weather, taking the first 2 games, they had then taken a 2-0 lead 2/3 of the way through the finale. But the Huskies hustled their way to a tie ball game, getting leadoff doubles by Duncan Hendrickson and KJ Brady in the 7th and 8th innings, which led to both of them scoring.

And then extra innings came. And then the clouds and rain came, And then the Pac-12 Network, never anticipating the game would go on over 4 hours had their satellite signal shut down momentarily.

Service was restored in plenty of time to see Levi Jordan single to left to drive in Alex Galgano for what would be the game winning run in the top of the 12th inning.

Oregon State stranded Jack Anderson at second in the bottom of the 12th, and Washington had the 3-2 win, with maybe a couple dozen soggy fans still watching the game that started during halftime of Oregon State's women's basketball NCAA Tournament Final 4 game, and lasted not only through the entirety of Washington's Final 4 game, but past the emptying out of the arena in Indianapolis.

But then next to no one saw Max Engelbrekt suffer his second loss of the season for the Beavers, or Spencer Jones redeem himself after getting "Nobached" Saturday, to get his first save of the season.

Still have no idea why this game wasn't moved to be the back end of a double-header Saturday, given what both Beaver Nation and Husky Honks had to focus on today.

With Travis Eckert taking over the Friday starting slot for the injured Rasmussen, who is done for the season with a torn UCL, Luke Heimlich got the start, and turned in a solid outing, allowing only 4 hits, though he did give up the first of the 2 doubles that turned into Washington runs.

Mitch Hickey and Jordan Britton both turned in multiple innings of relief work, and overall the pitching would have been enough to get the win had anyone other than DH Trevor Larnach, who singled to drive in Kyle Nobach for Oregon State's first run in the 5th, gotten more than 1 hit for the Beavers in the 12 inning affair.

Nick Madrigal had Oregon State's only extra base hit, a triple to lead off the 6th, which produced the run that inning, on Michael Gretler's single.

Once again, Oregon State managed to strand more base runners than they had hits.

The worst was the 1st, when the Beavers got 4 base runners, and loaded the bases, without a hit, and got nothing out of it.

The Beavers will step out of Pac-12 conference competition this coming weekend, taking on Central Arkansas in games at Goss on Friday and Sunday, wrapped around a game Saturday at Ron Tonkin Field, the Hillsboro Hops' home field at the Hillsboro Stadium complex Saturday, which will follow an open scrimmage by the Oregon State football team across the concourse from the baseball field.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com