Gerber ties career homer mark as OSU sweeps
March 20, 2000 | Baseball
March 20, 2000
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Joe Gerber tied Oregon State's career home run record and pitched a nine-hitter as the Beavers beat Central Michigan 5-3 Monday afternoon in the Continental Express Classic baseball tournament. OSU then wrapped up the event with a 6-1 win over host Texas A&M on Monday evening as James Atwood and Stephen Copeland swapped positions to come up with big games.
Oregon State (13-10 overall, 0-0 Pacific-10) will play at Portland on Wednesday at 2 p.m., then return home to meet Cal State-Northridge in a four-game series Friday through Sunday at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.
Oregon State placed second in the tournament behind champion Central Michigan. Four Beavers were named to the all-tournament team: pitcher Mark Newell, catcher Bryan Ingram, second baseman Stephen Copeland and third baseman Tim Dryden.
Despite playing the entire tournament without injured starting shortstop Will Hudson and losing starting infielder Brian Barden in the opening game, the Beavers finished the Continental Express Classic with a 3-3 record.
They split against each of the other teams in the tournament - Ohio State, Central Michigan and Texas A&M.
"We had two routes we could go," Oregon State head coach Pat Casey said. "One was to lay down and say we've got guys hurt and we can't play - we've got every excuse in the world. We told the kids today they'd find out what kind of character they've got, and it turned out they've got a lot."
With the Beavers playing six games in three days, OSU was forced to turn to first baseman Gerber and second baseman Copeland to pitch on Monday, and both threw complete-game victories. When Copeland took the mound against Texas A&M (13-15, 5-4 Big 12), the injury situation meant pitcher Atwood had to play second base and he responded with two hits, three runs scored and a throw that cut down an Aggie runner at the plate.
"At this point, it was fun to go out and relax and show I can still bang the ball around a little bit," said Atwood, who batted around .300 last season at NAIA Albertson College while playing the infield in addition to pitching. And his part in a relay play from centerfielder Jackson Coleman to Atwood to catcher Bryan Ingram cut off the Aggies' momentum after OSU had taken a 4-1 lead in the top of the fifth inning.
Texas A&M came right back with a leadoff single by David Evans, then Ryan Wardinsky doubled into the gap in right-centerfield. But Coleman cut the ball off, hit Atwood with a throw in short right-center, and Atwood's throw to the plate was on the mark to cut Evans down trying to score from third.
Instead of a 4-2 game with another runner in scoring position and the tying run at the plate, it was still a three-run Beaver lead with one out and Copeland got OSU out of the inning with the lead intact.
"It felt safe after we got the guy at home," Atwood said. "You could feel it in the air, that momentum was on our side."
Copeland made his second start of the season and picked up his second win with a seven-hitter. The only Aggie run was unearned, and the freshman righthander walked just one and struck out nine.
"That guy had just played five games at second base (in the tournament) and now he's got to go out and pitch - he had to be exhausted," Casey said. "We said we'll go with him and just see how far he can go, and he was outstanding. He threw three pitches for strikes,and that's how you beat people."
The Beaver had just seven hits themselves, but several came at crucial times. Chris Biles' two-out single drove Atwood home with the tying run in the top of the third inning, with two out in the fifth, Josh Carter delivered a two-run single and Tim Dryden followed with a run-scoring single, and in the sixth it was Ingram coming up with a two-run single.
Gerber helped Oregon State end a three-game losing streak in Monday's opener against Central Michigan (11-6, 0-0 Mid-American). The senior lefty made his first pitching appearance of the season and threw a complete game, walking two and striking out seven.
"It was funny," Casey said. "The last practice we had in Corvallis, we had Joe throw an inning because he hasn't taken much time to work on that, and he was pretty good. We felt we could throw him out there and he'd change speeds and throw strikes, and we'd see how far he could go, and Joe was better in the seventh inning than he had been the whole game."
Gerber moved into a tie with Al Hunsinger (1980-81) when he blasted his 28th career homer with no one on base in the bottom of the third inning. That put OSU up 3-1, the Beavers had gone in front earlier in the inning when Coleman was hit by a pitch and eventually scored on a groundout by Ingram.
OSU pushed the lead to 4-1 with an unearned run in the bottom of the fourth, then Central Michigan's Mike Galloway made it 4-3 with a two-run homer off the left-centerfield scoreboard in the top of the fifth.
Gerber was able to work out of trouble in the sixth inning, though, after talking pitching coach Gary Henderson out of removing him from the game during a conference on the mound. Gerber then retired the Chippewas in order in the seventh.
CMU, which had scored a run in the first inning and threatened to add more, left four runners in scoring position in the game and three of those were at third base.
Drew Hedges evened the game for OSU when he led off the bottom of the first with a homer onto the railroad tracks behind the rightfield fence. Copeland gave OSU some breathing room in the bottom of the sixth with a two-out, run-scoring single and Andy Jarvis was 2-for-3 for the Beavers.
OREGON STATE 5, CENTRAL MICHIGAN 3
Central Michigan 100 020 0 - 3 9 3 Oregon State 102 101 x - 5 6 2Garner, Nemeth (5), Krueger (6) and Gragg, Pickens (6). Gerber and Ingram. WP-Gerber (1-0). LP-Garner (0-2). 2B-Groves (CMU). HR-Galloway (CMU), Hedges (OSU), Gerber (OSU).
HITS: Central Michigan 9 (Scheurer 1x4, Pieratt 1x4, Sanborn 2x4, Galloway 2x3, Krueger 1x2, Groves 1x3, Bullinger 1x1), Oregon State 6 (Hedges 1x2, Gerber 1x3, Jarvis 2x3, Dryden 1x3, Copeland 1x3). RUNS BATTED IN: Central Michigan 3 (Galloway 3), Oregon State 4 (Hedges 1, Ingram 1, Gerber 1, Copeland 1).
OREGON STATE 6, TEXAS A&M 1
Oregon State 001 032 0 - 6 7 1 Texas A&M 010 000 0 - 1 7 0Copeland and Biles, Ingram (3). Berry, Knight (5), Adams (6), Martin (6), Pollok (7) and Gremminger. WP-Copeland (2-0). LP-Berry (0-1). 2B-Wardinsky (TAM).
HITS: Oregon State 7 (Biles 1x1, Ingram 2x2, Carter 1x4, Dryden 1x3, Atwood 2x3), Texas A&M 7 (Russ 1x4, Holt 3x3, Evans 1x2, Wardinsky 1x3, Hudson 1x1). RUNS BATTED IN: Oregon State 6 (Biles 1, Ingram 2, Carter 2, Dryden 1), Texas A&M 1 (Porter 1).
