No. 25 OSU Opens Tourney With A Win - Oregon State University Athletics

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Oregon State’s Joe Paterson and Daniel Turpen combined to pitch a seven-hitter as the 25th-ranked Beavers beat Rutgers 5-1 Friday night in the first round of the NCAA Charlottesville Regional baseball tournament. Chris Hopkins, John Wallace and Scott Santschi hit back-to-back-to-back doubles to key a three-run fifth inning for OSU (39-17 overall), the defending national champion.

The Beavers now play host Virginia (44-14) on Saturday at 3 p.m. PDT. The Cavaliers, ranked seventh nationally, beat Lafayette 5-1 in Friday’s other game at the tournament; Lafayette (33-19) and Rutgers (41-20), the Big East champion, will play Saturday at 10 a.m. PDT in the four-team, douible-elimination tournament.

OSU’s games in the tournament can be heard live on KEJO-AM (1240) in the Corvallis area, KUIK-AM (1360) in the Portland area, KKNX-AM (840) in the Eugene area and KICE-AM (940) in the Bend area and KMED-AM (1440) in the Medford area. Live audio is available via subscription on the internet through Beaver Nation Online at . Live stats are available at www.ncaasports.com.

“It’s always good to win your first game,” OSU head coach Pat Casey said. “The last two years (in regional openers), we beat Ohio State on a walkoff home run and we had a two-run double in the eighth inning to beat Wright State. The first game is difficult for everybody and I think everybody feels fortunate to win the first one. We played a very good Rutgers team.”

Before crowd of 2,097 on a warm, humid night, Paterson and Turpen – classmates at McMinnville High – teamed up to win a postseason game for the second time. At last season’s College World Series, they had combined on a five-hitter to beat No. 1-ranked Rice 5-0; this time, they switched roles as Paterson started and Turpen relieved.

Making his first postseason start after five relief appearances in 2006, Paterson went six innings and allowed one run on five hits and one walk while striking out three as he improved his record to 8-6 this season. After giving up a two-out single that drove in Rutgers’ only run in the first inning, he retired the next nine Scarlet Knights in a row and 13 of the next 14.

“I just wanted to get ahead and stay on the corners, try not to leave anything down the middle for them,” Paterson said. “The shortstop (Todd Frazier) swung early and hit a couple of my mistakes, but fortunately they stayed in the park.”

OSU sent Paterson out to face Rutgers rather than season-long Friday night starter Mike Stutes because Casey and his staff felt the lefthander matched up better against Scarlet Knights.

“I thought Joe pitched very, very well,” Casey said. “We wanted to defend, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that. I thought we had an opportunity early to score a little more and we didn’t capitalize on it and that made it close the entire game.”

After the Beavers got the minimum out of potential big innings in the second and third against Rutgers ace Steve Healing – single runs after putting their first three hitters aboard in each frame – OSU turned a two-out rally into three runs and a 5-2 lead in the top of the fifth inning. It started with Jordan Lennerton poking a single to left, then Hopkins yanked a double down the leftfield line that sent Lennerton to third.

Wallace drove a double to left-centerfield, scoring both Lennerton and Hopkins to make it 4-1. Santschi then pulled a ball that was just over the glove of rightfielder Dave Williams and rolled to the fence for a double that scored Wallace for a 5-1 lead.

OSU finished with 11 hits, as Santschi was 2-for-4 with a pair of doubles and Lennerton and Lissman were both 2-for-4.

“Joe [Paterson] set the table for us early,” Lissman said. “He worked hard for us, so we wanted to work hard for him.”

The Beavers went up 2-1 with a run in the top of the third inning against Rutgers starter Steve Healing. Joey Wong fouled off a pair of full-count pitches before singling up the middle to start the inning, Mitch Canham singled to left, and Mike Lissman poked a single down the rightfield line to score Wong and send Canham to third. But Healing struck out Jordan Lennerton for the first out, then Chris Hopkins hit a grounder to first and Canham was thrown out at the plate; John Wallace then popped out to end the inning.

OSU had evened the game 1-1 in the top of the second. Lissman and Lennerton started the inning with groundball singles, then Hopkins drew a four-pitch walk while trying to bunt the runners over. Wallace struck out swinging, then Scott Santschi smashed a ball at Rutgers third baseman Tim Querns; the ball went off Querns’ chest and skittered away, leaving all the runners safe as Lissman scored the tying run on the error. Darwin Barney came to the plate with the bases still loaded but grounded out to end the inning.

Rutgers took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. All-America shortstop Todd Frazier led off with a double to left-centerfield against OSU starter Joe Paterson and advanced to third on Mike Bionde’s sacrifice bunt. Paterson got Ryan Hill to pop out with Frazier staying at third, but Dave Williams grounded a two-out single through the left side to score Frazier.

With the win, OSU improved its postseason record over the past three seasons to 17-5, including 7-0 in NCAA Regionals. OSU now has an all-time record of 22-17 ion NCAA postseason play.

The Beavers limited an opponent to three or fewer runs for the 27th time in their 56 games this season. OSU – ranked second nationally in fielding percentage – also committed one or fewer errors for the 44th time in 56 games.

Oregon State 5 (39-17) Rutgers 1 (41-20)

Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI

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

Darwin Barney ss........... 5 0 0 0 Todd Frazier ss............ 4 1 2 0

Joey Wong 2b............... 5 1 1 0 Mike Bionde 2b............. 3 0 0 0

Mitch Canham c............. 5 0 1 0 Ryan Hill lf............... 4 0 2 0

Mike Lissman dh............ 4 1 2 1 David Williams rf.......... 3 0 1 1

Jordan Lennerton 1b........ 4 1 2 0 Tom Edwards 1b............. 4 0 1 0

Chris Hopkins cf........... 3 1 1 0 Jon Gossard dh............. 4 0 0 0

John Wallace lf............ 3 1 1 2 Tim Querns 3b.............. 4 0 1 0

Braden Wells ph/lf........ 1 0 0 0 Frank Meade c.............. 4 0 0 0

Scott Santschi rf.......... 4 0 2 1 Luis Feliz cf.............. 2 0 0 0

Lonnie Lechelt 3b.......... 3 0 1 0 Donny Callahan ph/cf...... 1 0 0 0

Joe Paterson p............. 0 0 0 0 Steve Healing p............ 0 0 0 0

Daniel Turpen p........... 0 0 0 0 Matt Patterson p.......... 0 0 0 0

Totals..................... 37 5 11 4 Totals..................... 33 1 7 1

Score by Innings R H E

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Oregon State........ 011 030 000 - 5 11 1

Rutgers............. 100 000 000 - 1 7 1

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E - Wong; Querns. DP - Oregon St. 1; Rutgers 2. LOB - Oregon St. 8; Rutgers 7. 2B -

Hopkins; Wallace; Santschi 2; Frazier 2; R.Hill; Edwards. SH - Lechelt; Bionde. SB -

Lissman.

Oregon State IP H R ER BB SO

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Joe Paterson W,8-6........ 6.0 5 1 1 1 3

Daniel Turpen ............. 3.0 2 0 0 0 2

Rutgers IP H R ER BB SO

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

Steve Healing L,10-4...... 5.0 10 5 4 1 5

Matt Patterson ............ 4.0 1 0 0 1 3

WP - Patterson. BK - Patterson.

Umpires - HP: Jeff Heinrichs 1B: Steve Corvi 2B: Scott Cline 3B: Bob Homolka

Start: 8:00 pm Time: 2:23 Attendance: 2097