Softball to Play at Troy Cox Classic at New Mexico State
February 25, 1999
THIS WEEK: Oregon State (10-3), fresh off of being crowned co-champions at the UNLV Classic after a 5-0 performance in Vegas last week, seeks its second consecutive tournament title when it plays in the Troy Cox Classic at New Mexico State on February 26-28 in Las Cruces. OSU is in the "Crimson" bracket and opens the 11-team tourney against Arkansas at 11:00 a.m. (all game times are PST) on Friday, and the Beavers also will play New Mexico State at 5:00 p.m. that evening. On Saturday, OSU meets Wichita State at 11:00 a.m., followed by No. 22 Minnesota at 3:00 p.m. Bracket play will begin that evening. Two single-elimination brackets will be set up, one with the top six seeds and another with the bottom five seeds.
SERIES RECORDS: Oregon State has played three of this week's four opponents before, with Arkansas being a first-time opponent for OSU. The Beavers are 5-1 all-time against New Mexico State, 0-1 against Wichita State and 2-3 against Minnesota.
A LOOK AT THE FIELD: No. 22 Minnesota will pose the biggest challenge for the Beavers. The Gophers are 12-2 and have four players batting over. 300, led by Tammi Hays at .432. Jordanne Nygrem is hitting .325 and already has seven home runs. Wichita State is 1-5 entering the tournament, with its one win coming against UC-Santa Barbara. Arkansas is 8-3 and is led by Dana Gulick's .425 batting average. New Mexico State is 0-12 entering the tournament but that may be misleading as eight of the teams losses were to Top 25 teams, including Arizona, UCLA and Washington.
A RECORD-BREAKING WEEKEND: The Beavers went 5-0 at last week's UNLV Classic and set four school records in the process. Junior All-American Tarrah Beyster struck out 24 batters on the weekend to give her 357 career strikeouts, two more than Joan Harvey had from 1982-85. Senior Jodi Chmielewski picked up eight hits to become OSU's all-time leader for hits. She now has 165 hits, four more than previous record holder Amy Warner had from 1994-97. Also, sophomore Shawna Feldt set an OSU record for single-game stolen bases with three against Loyola Marymount; previously, three Beavers had two stolen bases in a game. Freshman Crystal Draper struck out 14 batters against Southern Utah, tying Beyster for the school record for Ks in a seven-inning game.
BEAVER BATS COME ALIVE: OSU had five players hit .375 or better at last week's UNLV Classic as the Beavers hit .295 as a team. Senior Jodi Chmielewski and junior Tarrah Beyster both hit .500, while sophomore Shawna Feldt hit .438 in the five games. Additionally, senior Heather Chinn batted .400 and senior Kelli Kranz chipped in with a .375 average. Chmielewski led the Beavers with eight hits, while Beyster and Feldt each had seven. Feldt also scored a team-best four runs.
BEYSTER UP TO 16 RECORDS: When junior All-American Tarrah Beyster set OSU's career record for strikeouts, it was her 16th school record that she has set in just over two years as a Beaver. Beyster also holds OSUs career records for home runs (27), RBI (75), bases on balls (104), and batting average (.394). She also holds five single-season school records and five single-game records. Beyster is now moving in on the career wins record; she ranks fourth with 42 wins, while Joan Harvey won a school record 57 games from 1982-85. Beyster has won seven games thus far in 1999.
STREAKS AND SUCH: Three Beavers are currently riding at least a five-game hitting streak. Senior Jodi Chmielewski boasts a nine-game hitting streak, for the team's longest currrent streak. Junior Tarrah Beyster has had a hit in each of the last seven games, and sophomore Shawna Feldt has a five-game hitting streak. Feldt also had a six-game streak earlier this season.
TOUGH SCHEDULE IN STORE FOR BEAVERS: Oregon State met the first of many ranked opponents this season when the Beavers played No. 17 Hawaii twice at the Paradise Classic. OSU lost both those games, falling 2-0 in round robin play and 1-0 in the tourneys championship game. OSU gets its next chance when it meets No. 22 Minnesota on Saturday at the Troy Cox Classic. Oregon State's 1999 schedule features 12 of the 25 teams that are ranked in the USA Today/NFCA preseason top 25 poll, including No. 1 Fresno State, No. 2 Arizona, No. 3 UCLA and No. 4 Washington. In addition, four other opponents on the Beavers schedule received votes in the preseason poll. OSU, which was ranked as high as No. 12 last season, received seven votes in the preseason poll. Six Pacific-10 schools are ranked, more than any other conference. OSU was 13-24 against ranked teams last season.
BASE STEALING BEAVERS? Oregon State has already stolen 17 bases in 26 tries in just 13 games this season, a vast jump from a year ago. Last year, OSU stole just 18 bases in 24 attempts for the entire 55-game season. OSU stole a single-game record of five bases against Loyola Marymount at the Paradise Classic two weeks ago, and sophomore Shawna Feldt set a school record with three steals against LMU at UNLV last week. Feldt leads the team with four stolen bases on the year, followed by juniors Amber Anderson and Parisa Plant with three each. Eight Beavers have at least one stolen base. OSU's opponents are 9-13 in stolen base attempts; last year's opponents were 57-67 in 55 games.
NO WALK IN THE PARK FOR OPPONENTS: The OSU pitching tandem of junior Tarrah Beyster and freshman Crystal Draper is rarely giving up bases on balls. In 90 innings of play, the duo has walked just nine batters -- 0.7 walks per seven-inning game. On the other hand, they have struck out 86 batters -- 6.69 Ks per seven innings. Draper has an incredible strikeout-to-walk ratio of 11:1 (44 Ks, 4 BB), while Beyster has an 8.4:1 ratio (42 Ks, 5 BB).
HEAD COACH KIRK WALKER: Kirk Walker is in his fifth season as head coach of the OSU softball program. His 1998 squad came closer to a winning record (27-28) than any other OSU team has since the '84 team finished 40-17. His 1997 squad compiled a 29-34-1 record, and those 29 wins were third most in school history and the most since 1984. His overall record at OSU stands at 94-143-1 (39.7 percent), but 67-65-1 (50.8 percent) from 1997-99. His 94 wins make him the second all-time winningest softball coach at OSU. Ellen Margolis led the Beavers to 145 wins from 1981-85. Walker came to OSU from UCLA, where he spent 11 years as a manager and assistant coach.
HOME SWEET HOME? Oregon State won't play a game at Ropes-Fetrow Field until March 29 -- at least 33 games into the season. The Beavers will host Simon Fraser in a 2:00 p.m. doubleheader on March 29 before hitting the road yet again. After the Simon Fraser games, OSU wont be back in action in Corvallis until April 17 against Washington.
LET'S GET TWO: Seven Beavers have had at least one multiple-hit game this year. Sophomore Shawna Feldt and senior Jodi Chmielewski lead the team with five multiple-hit games each, while junior Tarrah Beyster has four. Four others each have one multiple-hit outing. Chmielewski is the only Beaver with three hits in one game, against San Jose State in the season opener. Beyster leads the team with four multiple-RBI games, and sophomore Jenni Jodoin has driven in multiple runs in three games.
