No. 8 OSU Pitches Its Way Past Miami In CWS - Oregon State University Athletics

OMAHA, Neb. – Mike Stutes, Eddie Kunz and Kevin Gunderson combined to pitch a five-hitter for Oregon State as the No. 8-ranked Beavers beat No. 24 Miami (Fla.) 8-1 in Tuesday night’s loser-out game at the College World Series at Rosenblatt Stadium. OSU (46-15 overall) matched the school record for wins that it set last season and avenged an 11-1 loss to Miami (42-24) in the CWS opening round.

OSU is now one of the final four teams in the event. The Beavers would need to beat No. 1-ranked Rice twice – once each on Wednesday and Thursday – to advance to the championship series against either No. 9 North Carolina or No. 3 Cal State-Fullerton.

Oregon State and Rice will play Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. PDT. The game can be seen on the ESPN2 cable network, and all of the Beavers’ games in the CWS can be heard on KEJO-AM (1240) in the Corvallis area, KUIK-AM (1360) in the Portland area, KKNX-AM (840) in the Eugene area, KRNR-AM (1490) in the Roseburg area, KMED-AM (1440) in the Medford area, KICE-AM (940) in the Bend area and KNPT-AM (1310) in the Newport area.

On Tuesday, Stutes set the tone for the OSU win by going 6 1/3 innings and not allowing a run until Dennis Raben’s one-out home run in the seventh inning – just Miami’s second hit of the game to that point. Stutes retired the first eight hitters he faced and the Hurricanes didn’t get a hit until there were two out in the fifth inning.

“I saw it as any other start,” said the sophomore righthander, who walked one, struck out three and gave up four hits. “I was having a good time out there. This is the biggest stage in college baseball, and I was having fun.”

In a turnaround from the teams’ first meeting on Saturday night, when Miami grabbed a 5-0 lead after two innings, this time it was the Beavers going up 5-0 after three innings.

“I’m very proud of our ballclub,” OSU head coach Pat Casey said. “We said we were better than we played on opening day and we had to prove it.”

OSU got Stutes a run to work with in the first inning when Darwin Barney led off with a walk and eventually scored on Bill Rowe’s sacrifice fly to left. The Beavers then chased Miami righthander Carlos Gutierrez – who hadn’t pitched since April 19 due to arm problems – with a four-run fourth inning that included a leadoff double by Scott Santschi, singles by Barney and John Wallace, a run-scoring double by Cole Gillespie, a run-scoring groundout by Rowe and Mitch Canham’s run-scoring single up the middle.

“We knew we could hit,” said Canham, who went 3-for-4 and drove in two runs on the night. “We showed we could do it today. Miami’s a really good hitting team. They put it on us in the first game and we had to bounce back.”

The Beavers finished with 13 hits on the night, as Rowe and Tyler Graham were both 2-for-4 and Wallace was 2-for-5. McFeely added a soaring leadoff homer to left in the fourth inning to make it 6-0, and OSU’s lead grew to 7-0 in the fifth when Rowe singled with one out and eventually scored on Canham’s one-out double.

“I’d like to congratulate Oregon State,” Miami coach Jim Morris said. “They played very well. Their pitching was outstanding, and they played great defense ... our bats were slow tonight. We ran out of gas.”

After Miami picked up its first run on Raben’s homer – which hit the rightfield seats about five rows from the back of the pavilion – the Hurricanes got singles from Yonder Alonso and Roger Tomas to give themselves a chance to get back in the game. But OSU reliever Eddie Kunz went to the mound and got a pair of flyouts to end the inning with the Beavers still ahead 7-1.

Oregon State tacked on its final run in the top of the ninth inning when Rowe singled to center, then scored on Tyler Graham’s triple to centerfield to make it 8-1. Rowe, like Stutes, is an Oregon prep product who transferred to OSU this season after starting their collegiate careers elsewhere.

“It’s a lot better being a part of it than watching it on ESPN,” Rowe said of the College World Series. “It’s tough seeing those guys play here.”

Gunderson needed just 12 pitches to record the final five outs of the game for OSU, including striking out the last two hitters of the night.

Gillespie’s double was his 25th of the season, giving him the OSU record for two-base hits in a season. The crowd of 26,241 was the largest ever to seen an Oregon State baseball game, eclipsing the 25,417 that saw Saturday night’s game between the Beavers and the Hurricanes.

Tuesday’s game had been scheduled to start at 8 p.m. CDT, but because of the length of the preceding game that saw Cal State-Fullerton eliminate Clemson, the contest didn’t begin until 9:05 p.m. and it ended at eight minutes after midnight local time.

Oregon State 8 (46-15) Miami 1 (42-24)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

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

Barney, Darwin ss.......... 4 2 1 0 Jemile Weeks 2b/ss......... 4 0 0 0

Wallace, John rf........... 5 1 2 0 Tommy Giles rf............. 4 0 1 0

Gillespie, Cole lf......... 5 1 1 1 Jon Jay cf................. 4 0 0 0

Rowe, Bill 1b.............. 4 2 2 2 Danny Valencia 3b.......... 4 0 0 0

Graham, Tyler cf........... 4 0 2 1 Dennis Raben dh............ 4 1 1 1

Canham, Mitch c............ 4 0 3 2 Yonder Alonso 1b........... 4 0 1 0

Kunda, Chris 2b............ 5 0 0 0 Roger Tomas ss............. 1 0 0 0

McFeely, Shea 3b........... 4 1 1 1 Gus Menendez ph/2b........ 2 0 1 0

Santschi, Scott dh......... 3 1 1 0 Eddy Rodriguez c........... 3 0 1 0

Stutes, Mike p............. 0 0 0 0 Blake Tekotte lf........... 2 0 0 0

Kunz, Eddie p............. 0 0 0 0 Carlos Gutierrez p......... 0 0 0 0

Gunderson, Kevin p........ 0 0 0 0 Marcelo Albir p........... 0 0 0 0

Jon McLean p.............. 0 0 0 0

Chris Perez p............. 0 0 0 0

Ricky Orta p.............. 0 0 0 0

Totals..................... 38 8 13 7 Totals..................... 32 1 5 1

Score by Innings R H E

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Oregon State........ 104 110 001 - 8 13 0

Miami............... 000 000 100 - 1 5 1

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E - Menendez, G. DP - Miami 1. LOB - Oregon St. 8; Miami 6. 2B - Gillespie;

Canham; Santschi; Giles, T. 3B – Graham. HR – McFeely; Raben,

D. HBP - Tomas, R. SF – Rowe. SB - Canham.

Oregon State IP H R ER BB SO

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

Stutes, Mike W,8-2........ 6.1 4 1 1 1 3

Kunz, Eddie ............... 1.0 1 0 0 0 0

Gunderson, Kevin .......... 1.2 0 0 0 0 2

Miami IP H R ER BB SO

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

Carlos Gutierrez L,9-7.... 2.0 4 4 4 1 3

Marcelo Albir ............. 0.2 2 1 1 0 0

Jon McLean ................ 2.2 4 2 2 0 2

Chris Perez ............... 1.2 1 0 0 2 3

Ricky Orta ................ 2.0 2 1 1 1 2

WP - Stutes; Gutierrez, C. HBP - by Stutes (Tomas, R).

Umpires - HP: Perry Costello 1B: Tony Maners 2B: Randy Harvey 3B: Randy Bruns

Start: 9:05 pm Time: 3:03 Attendance: 26241

Gutierrez, C faced 3 batters in the 3rd.