#1 Oregon State Gets By NDST; Plays UC-Irvine Saturday

There may be tickets available for Saturday’s game, starting at 10 a.m. at Goss Stadium.

Dylan Davis’ solo homer in the seventh inning broke a 1-1 tie as top-seeded Oregon State edged North Dakota State 2-1 on Friday in its opening game at the NCAA Corvallis Regional at Goss Stadium. Photo: OSU Athletics

(CORVALLIS, Ore. ) - Andrew Moore fanned a career-high 14 in eight innings and Dylan Davis’ solo homer in the seventh inning broke a 1-1 tie as top-seeded Oregon State edged North Dakota State 2-1 on Friday in its opening game at the NCAA Corvallis Regional at Goss Stadium.

The top-seeded Beavers (43-12) will face No. 3 seed UC-Irvine (36-22) in the second round at 8 p.m. Saturday; the winner moves on to Sunday’s third round needing just one victory to advance to the Super Regionals. The Anteaters thumped second-seeded UNLV 10-3 in Friday afternoon’s regional opener.

The Beavers and UCI have not played since 2007, when OSU prevailed 7-1 in an elimination game at the College World Series to advance to the championship series. OSU swept North Carolina 2-0 that year to capture its second consecutive NCAA title.

Moore also shattered the school record for postseason strikeouts of 11, last set by Matt Boyd in a 1-0 win over Indiana in the 2013 College World Series. He allowed a second-inning home run by Kyle Kreinendorst, then spaced three singles and did not allow a Bison (25-25) past first base over the next six innings. He struck out the side in the seventh and eighth, and did not issue a walk in a brilliant 117-pitch performance.

Max Engelbrekt relieved Moore to start the ninth inning and struck out NDSU leadoff hitter Tim Colwell. Closer Scott Schultz replaced Engelbrekt and gave up a single, then got the final two outs on fly balls for his sixth save. The final out was an opposite-field shot by Kreinendorst to the warning track in left field.

Davis provided the late-inning, first-round heroics for the second year in a row with his seventh homer of the season, a line drive that cleared the 365-foot mark in left-center field with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. Last year Davis drilled a two-run double to the opposite gap in the last of the ninth to power the Beavers to a 5-4 win over Texas-San Antonio in their regional debut.

OSU’s other run came in the second inning when shortstop Trever Morrison drove in Gabe Clark by barely beating the relay to first base on what would have been an inning-ending 3-6-3 double play. The Beavers had loaded the bases with one out on singles by Clark and Michael Howard and a walk to Logan ice.

Davis homered and doubled, Clark singled twice and walked twice and Ice singled twice for the Beavers. They had at least one hit in every inning except the eighth but left 11 runners on base.

NDSU starter David Ernst was the tough-luck loser. He allowed two runs on 10 hits in 7 2/3 innings and tied his career high with six strikeouts. Kleinendorst also singled and was the only Bison with more than one hit. NDSU faces UNLV (35-24) at 2 p.m. Saturday in an elimination game.

The season-high crowd of 3,408 raised the season total to 68,470 in 24 openings, an average of 2,853 per date. The Beavers have drawn 2,032 or more fans to every home game.

There may be tickets available for Saturday’s game, starting at 10 a.m. at Goss Stadium.

Source: OSU Athletics