Beavers Snap Losing Streak With 9-3 Win Over UCLA

After a rough stretch over the last two weeks, the Oregon State Beavers ended the regular season on a high note with a 9-3 win over UCLA. The victory snaps a four game losing streak, and allows Oregon State to finish the regular season at 41-13, and 20-10 in conference play.

The Beavers jumped out to an early lead and never really let the Bruins back into the game. The bottom of the first opened with three straight singles from Travis Bazzana, Garret Forrester and Wade Meckler, which scored the Beavers first run. Two batters later another single, from Justin Boyd, scored Forrester, putting the Beavs up 2-0 after one.

The Bruins grabbed a run in the top of the second with a sacrifice fly from Darius Perry, but Oregon State put some distance between themselves and UCLA in the bottom of the third, when a two run homer from Jacob Melton put the Beavers up 4-1.

The bottom of the sixth was when Oregon State really broke things open. Gavin Logan opened the inning with a walk, and then Greg Fuchs doubled to put him on third base. A Jake Dukart single scored Logan, and then a wild pitch scored Fuchs. After Kyle Dernedde was walked and Travis Bazzana reached on a fielder’s choice, a three run home run from Garret Forrester seemed to put the game on ice, with the Beavers up 9-1.

UCLA did put some fear into Oregon State in the top of the seventh however. Jake Pfennigs had pitched a great game through six innings, but after a quick ground out to open the inning he walked his next two batters. Braden Boisvert then came, and walked another batter before giving up a single to UCLA’s Carson Yates, which scored a run for the Bruins.

Ben Ferrer then came in to close things out for OSU. While he did give up one more single, to Jake Palmer, which scored another run for UCLA, he struck out two Bruins to end the inning. In the eighth and ninth innings Ferrer did not allow anyone to reach base, preserving Oregon State’s 9-3 win.

That’s all she wrote for the regular season. Up next for Oregon State is a trip to Scottsdale to take part in the inaugural Pac-12 Baseball Tournament. After their struggles in the last few weeks, the Beavers allowed Stanford to snatch the regular season Pac-12 title outright, but a good performance in the conference tournament should shore up their postseason credentials.

The tournament begins on May 25th. The Pac-12 will release more information about scheduling once the regular season is fully wrapped.