Beavers complete sweep with 27-4 pounding of Washington
March 05, 2000 | Baseball
March 5, 2000
SEATTLE, Wash. - Oregon State had five home runs - including two by Zach Gordon - among its 23 hits as the Beavers beat Washington 27-4 in non-league baseball Sunday afternoon at Husky Ballpark. OSU (7-6 overall, 0-0 Pacific-10) has won four straight games and six of its last seven going into Tuesday's 2 p.m. home opener against Western Oregon at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.
In its two-game weekend sweep of the Huskies (3-8, 0-0), the Beavers scored 40 runs on 39 hits. OSU had taken a 13-9 win on Saturday to start its first series sweep of Washington in Seattle since a two-game sweep in 1998.
"Sometimes those things happen in baseball," Oregon State head coach Pat Casey said. "We had an extremely successful day at the plate. Sometimes you just get rolling, and we got rolling today. We've experienced the flip side of that here. To come up here and win both games, we'll take it any way we can."
Overshadowed by the Beavers' firepower at the plate on Sunday was the pitching of junior lefthander Scott Nicholson, who earned his second straight win. He retired the first nine hitters he faced, in seven innings, he allowed just one run on three hits and two walks, striking out 10.
"He pitched well," Casey said of Nicholson. "He'd hadn't been as good early in the season as he can be, and we were waiting for a breakout game from him where good things happen, then you get some confidence and belief in the things that we're teaching, and he had that kind of game today."
Gordon also had a breakout game for OSU. Batting just .111 going into the day, the junior second baseman was 4-for-5 with two solo homers, a two-run triple, a double, four runs batted in and two walks. His 13 total bases were one short of the single-game school record of 14 set by Jim Wilson against Washington State in 1982.
"I was just trying to relax," said Gordon, who doubled his season hit total in one afternoon. "I've been anxious up there, and I've been working on waiting for the ball and relaxing, sticking with it, and getting a good pitch to hit. I got a couple of good pitches."
The early-season struggles had been new territory for Gordon, who batted .378 with 26 homers in a two-year career at Moorpark (Calif.) Junior College.
"It's tough," Gordon admitted. "It's always easy to have a lot of confidence when you're going good, but when you're not, it's a matter of sticking it out working on the things that make you a good player, because eventually it will come around."
Gordon was far from the only Beaver to make some noise at the plate Sunday. Freshman third baseman Brian Barden had his first collegiate home run as part of a 4-for-7, three-RBI day that also included a double, Joe Gerber extended his hitting streak to seven games by going 2-for-5 with a double and three RBIs, sophomore outfielder Josh Carter is on a six-game hitting streak after going 4-for-6 with a triple and four RBIs, senior outfielder Rod Gott had OSU's first grand slam since the 1998 season and was 2-for-6 with six RBIs, and junior outfielder Jackson Coleman came off the bench in the late innings to go 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs.
OSU jumped in front with an unearned run in the first inning, then made it 4-0 in the fourth on Barden's leadoff homer to center field and Gordon's two-run triple off the fence in right-center. The Beavers pushed the lead to 10-0 with a six-run fifth inning that included back-to-back homers by Gott - the grand slam - and Gordon.
Andy Jarvis' two-run homer and Gerber's two-run double gave Oregon State four more runs in the fifth inning to make it 14-0 and Gordon's second homer of the game put the Beavers up 15-0 in the sixth inning. OSU's biggest inning of the day, though, was a nine-run eighth that saw 14 men go to the plate and collect six hits to go with four hit batters, a walk and two Husky errors.
OREGON STATE 27, WASHINGTON 4
Oregon State 103 641 093 - 27 23 1 Washington 000 001 003 - 4 5 2Nicholson, Hansen (8), Renault (9) and Ingram, Biles (7). Bomar, White (4), Vanderplow (7), McCoy (8), Robertson (8), Daniels (9) and Thiel, Rice (7). WP-Nicholson (2-2). LP-Bomar (0-3). 2B-Barden (OSU), Gerber (OSU), Gordon (OSU), Coleman (OSU). 3B-Carter (OSU), Gordon (OSU). HR-Barden (OSU), Jarvis (OSU), Gott (OSU), Gordon 2 (OSU), Davidson (UW).
HITS: Oregon State 23 (Ingram 2x4, Biles 1x1, Barden 4x7, Gerber 2x5, Jarvis 1x2, Carter 4x6, Gott 2x6, Gordon 4x5, Stark 1x4, Coleman 2x3), Washington 5 (Johnson 1x2, Drake 1x3, Davidson 1x2, Thiel 1x, Rice 1x1). RUNS BATTED IN: Oregon State 25 (Biles 1, Barden 3, Gerber 3, Jarvis 2, Carter 4, Gott 6, Gordon 4, Coleman 2), Washington 4 (Johnson 1, Davidson 3).
