March 6, 2010

Box Score

SURPRISE, Arizona - No. 10/22 (Collegiate Baseball/Baseball America) Oregon State jumped out to an early lead and sailed past Utah Valley in a 9-0 shutout on Saturday at the Coca-Cola Classic in Surprise, Arizona.

The Wolverines (4-6) dropped a pair of close games to open the tournament before Saturday's loss and have one more chance to salvage a win on the weekend when they face UC Riverside on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. MT. The game, which was originally scheduled for 1 p.m. was moved up due to expected rain in the Surprise area on Sunday.

The Beavers (7-3) have won two out of three games at the tournament and got 7.2 shutout innings from Utah native Tanner Robles. Robles (2-1) escaped minor trouble early and allowed nine scattered hits and struck out nine without allowing a walk.

The Wolverines had a chance to take an early lead when Jake Rickenbach doubled on the first pitch of the game. He moved over to third on a fly ball but was stranded after back-to-back strikeouts to end the inning.

Utah Valley starter Zane Gray (1-2) struck out the side in the first and had five total strikeouts but took the loss after allowing five earned runs (six total) on five hits in three innings.

Oregon State scored two in the second after Stefen Romero doubled to lead off the inning and later came in on a double by Travis Anderson. Tyler Smith's two-out single scored Anderson and put the Beavers up 2-0.

OSU added two more runs in the third and five in the fourth, two of which were unearned, to blow the game open.

Sage Thorpe and Jason Zundel had two hits each to lead Utah Valley. Braden Poole made his collegiate debut on the mound and pitched a scoreless eighth inning for the Wolverines.

Utah Valley out-hit Oregon State 9-7 in the game but the Beavers had the timely hits in their run-scoring innings to put the game out of reach.