No. 5 OSU Evens Baseball Series With 5-3 Win Over Washington

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State’s Shea McFeely was 3-for-5 with a home run and scored the winning run in the seventh inning as the No. 5-ranked Beavers beat Washington 5-3 in Pacific-10 baseball Saturday afternoon at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field. Kevin Gunderson earned his 15th save of the season to break his own single-season record for OSU (33-11 overall, 10-4 Pacific-10), which increased its lead in the Pac-10 race to two games over idle Southern California and 2 1/2 games over Washington, Arizona State and UCLA.

Oregon State and Washington (31-18, 9-8) conclude their series Sunday at 1 p.m.; the game can be heard live on KEJO-AM (1240) in the Corvallis area and KUIK-AM (1360) in the Portland area. Live audio and video is available via subscription over the internet at . There are approximately 125 tickets remaining for the game and they will go on sale at 11 a.m. at the Goss Stadium at Coleman Field ticket window.

On Saturday, a second-straight sellout crowd of 2,327 and a regional cable television audience watched OSU win for the 21st time in its last 25 games and improve to 20-3 at home this season.

“It was a battle today,” Gunderson said. “They’re a great club and we haven’t been doing some things we normally do offensively as far as driving guys in from third base and executing, but our guys battled and scored the runs we needed to.”

McFeely scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch and John Wallace added a run-scoring single in the bottom of the seventh, then Gunderson recorded the final six outs to break the OSU single-season record that he set last season. It was also the 32nd save of Gunderson’s career, giving him sole possession of second place on the Pac-10’s all-time list behind Jack Krawczyk (49 for Southern California from 1995-98).

“That’s just a real good job by Kevin Gunderson,” OSU head coach Pat Casey said. “And Jonah Nickerson pitched very well – I don’t think he felt he had his best stuff, but he competed his tail off. He gave us a great start.”

Nickerson had his string of victories in six straight starts come to an end as reliever Eddie Kunz was credited with the win after getting the final two outs in the top of the seventh inning, improving his record to 4-1 this season. Nickerson went 6 1/3 innings and allowed three runs on nine hits and one walk while striking out six; Gunderson allowed one hit and one walk while striking out one in his two innings.

The victory didn’t come without Washington putting the tying runs on base in the ninth inning before Gunderson got Curt Rindal to fly out to leftfield for the win.

“It’s always a dogfight, no pun intended,” Casey said. “You play hard. Last year we went up there and won some games by a run or two (in the Beavers’ sweep) and Friday’s game was close (in the Huskies’ 6-4 win). It’s just all the time. They’ve got a ton of power in their lineup, and we just felt like today we dodged a little bit of a bullet when we left so many runners on base.”

Oregon State left 14 runners on as it collected 12 hits, but it kept the game in reach by not giving Washington’s powerful lineup a big inning; UW scored single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings. McFeely’s homer to leftfield tied the game at 2-2 in the bottom of the fourth; after Washington went up 3-2, the Beavers tied the game at 3-3 when Wallace drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the sixth.

The Huskies nearly took the lead again in the seventh when Eddie Kunz’s pitch to Zach Clem skipped to the backstop and Cory Rickard headed home from third base, but catcher Mitch Canham’s throw to Kunz covering the plate was in time to get Rickard and help keep UW from scoring.

McFeely then started the Beavers’ two-run rally in the seventh with a single up the middle and Bill Rowe added a single before Mike Lissman reached on an error to load the bases. McFeely raced home on a wild pitch from Nick Hagadome to make it 4-3; then with two out and the bases loaded Wallace singled through the left side to drive in the final run for a 5-3 OSU lead.

“It’s always close, and both teams have good pitching and good hitting and they get things done when they need to,” said McFeely, who scored twice to earn a place on OSU’s all-time top 10 list of career runs leaders. After Saturday, the senior third baseman is four at-bats, four hits and 12 total bases from places in the school’s career top-10s in those categories, as well.

Wallace, a freshman outfielder, was 2-for-4 with two RBIs while Lissman was 2-for-3 and Rowe was 2-for-5. Mitch Canham had his fifth triple of the season, tying him for sixth place on OSU’s all-time single-season list.

For Washington, reliever Bryce Mooney took the loss to drop to 3-2 this season, going one inning and giving up two runs on two hits and no walks while striking out two. UW starter Kyle Parker went 5 1/3 innings, giving up three runs on eight hits and five walks while striking out two. Matt Hague was 3-for-4 with a double for Washington and Rickard was 2-for-3 for the Huskies.

NO. 5 OREGON STATE 5, WASHINGTON 3

Washington 001 110 000 – 3 11 2

Oregon State 010 101 20x – 5 12 1

Parker, Haughian (6), Mooney (6), Hagadone (7), Kasser (8) and Lane. Nickerson, Kunz (7), Gunderson (8) and Canham. W-Kunz (4-1). L-Mooney (3-2). Sv-Gunderson (15). 2B-Hague (UW), Gillespie (OSU). 3B-Canham (OSU). HR-McFeely (OSU).

HITS: Washington 11 (Rife 1x3, Hague 3x4, Clem 1x4, Rindal 1x3, Lane 1x4, Cox 1x3, Anderson 1x4, Rickard 2x3), Oregon State 12 (Wallace 2x4, Barney 1x5, Gillespie 1x3, Canham 1x5, McFeely 3x5, Rowe 2x5, Lissman 2x3). RUNS BATTED IN: Washington 3 (Hague 1, Rindal 1, Rickard 1), Oregon State 4 (Wallace 2, McFeely 1, Lissman 1).

Washington 3 (31-18,9-8 PAC-10) Oregon State 5 (33-11,10-4 PAC-10)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

--------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------

Rife, Jake cf.............. 3 0 1 0 Kunda, Chris 2b............ 1 0 0 0

Petersen, Trevor ph....... 1 0 0 0 Wallace, John cf........... 4 0 2 2

Hague, Matt dh............. 4 1 3 1 Barney, Darwin ss.......... 5 0 1 0

Kaluza, Brett pr.......... 0 0 0 0 Gillespie, Cole lf......... 3 1 1 0

Clem, Zach lf.............. 4 0 1 0 Canham, Mitch c............ 5 0 1 0

Rindal, Curt 1b............ 3 1 1 1 McFeely, Shea 3b........... 5 2 3 1

Lane, Matt c............... 4 0 1 0 Rowe, Bill 1b.............. 5 1 2 0

Stevens, Matt 3b........... 4 0 0 0 Lissman, Mike dh........... 3 1 2 1

Cox, Danny ss.............. 3 0 1 0 Santschi, Scott rf......... 4 0 0 0

Boyer, Bradley ph......... 1 0 0 0 Nickerson, Jonah p......... 0 0 0 0

Anderson, Ryan 2b.......... 4 1 1 0 Kunz, Eddie p............. 0 0 0 0

Rickard, Cory rf........... 3 0 2 1 Gunderson, Kevin p........ 0 0 0 0

Conley, Kyle ph........... 1 0 0 0

Parker, Kyle p............. 0 0 0 0

Haughian, Nick p.......... 0 0 0 0

Mooney, Bryce p........... 0 0 0 0

Hagadone, Nick p.......... 0 0 0 0

Kasser, Matt p............ 0 0 0 0

Totals..................... 35 3 11 3 Totals..................... 35 5 12 4

Score by Innings R H E

-------------------------------------------

Washington.......... 001 110 000 - 3 11 2

Oregon State........ 010 101 20X - 5 12 1

-------------------------------------------

E - Stevens; Cox; Gunderson. DP - Oregon St. 1. LOB - Washington 10; Oregon St. 14.

2B - Hague; Gillespie. 3B - Canham. HR - McFeely. HBP - Gillespie. SH - Rife. SF -

Rindal. CS - Wallace.

Washington IP H R ER BB SO

------------------------------------------------

Parker, Kyle .............. 5.1 8 3 3 5 2

Haughian, Nick ............ 0.0 0 0 0 1 0

Mooney, Bryce L,3-2....... 1.0 2 2 1 0 2

Hagadone, Nick ............ 0.2 1 0 0 1 1

Kasser, Matt .............. 1.0 1 0 0 0 2

Oregon State IP H R ER BB SO

------------------------------------------------

Nickerson, Jonah .......... 6.1 9 3 3 1 6

Kunz, Eddie W,4-1......... 0.2 1 0 0 1 0

Gunderson, Kevin S,15..... 2.0 1 0 0 1 1

WP - Hagadone. HBP - by Parker (Gillespie).

Umpires - HP: Ruben Candelaria 1B: Kelly Gonzales 3B: Joe Burleson

Start: 1:07 PM Time: 3:14 Attendance: 2327