Oregon St. vs. Texas St. - Friday Game Thread

Texas State (5-7) at #4 Oregon St. (12-0) / 5:35 PM PST / Goss Stadium / KEJO 1240 AM & KPOJ 620 AM

Gametracker / Live Video

The fourth-ranked Beavs play the first of 3 games against the Bobcats tonight. Texas State is in the WAC this year, but last year they were part of the Southland Conference, which they finished 4th (out of 12 teams) in.

The Beavers are sending senior lefty Matt Boyd (2-0, 1.27) to the mound tonight, looking to continue what has been a wonderful start of the season. He has allowed just 3 runs (all earned) this season, and is coming off a 8.1 inning shutout of Bryant.

The Bobcats starter is junior Kyle Finnegan (1-0, 1.59). The 6'2" righty last appeared in a game on March 1st against Northern Kentucky, and he went 6 shutout innings. He has 26 strikeouts in just 17 innings so far this year. In his freshmen year he appeared in 8 games, starting 1, and accumulated a 6.97 ERA. In his sophomore year he had a 3.28 ERA over 92.1 innings of work. He struck out 75. Last year, Baseball America's Aaron Fitt reported Finnegan's fastball was 90-94 MPH, and he had good control over his low-80's breaking ball.

Michael Conforto is coming off a National Player of the Week award, and has the chance to do some big things over the next week or two -- the Beavs play 5 games in the next 6 days, and 9 in the next 11. After the 3 games against Texas State, Oregon State has 2 games against San Fransisco, and just two days after that it's the conference opener in Tucson.

The Beavers non-conference schedule isn't exactly the strongest, so winning as many of these games as possible is critical to their postseason resumé.

Go Beavs!