In round one of the baseball Civil War, the No. 17 Oregon Ducks jumped out to an early lead, and rode it to their 28th victory of the season.
Behind strong pitching performances from Joey Housey and Madison Boer, the Ducks (28-13) pounded the Beavers (21-14) for 11 hits in a 9-4 win Tuesday night in Eugene.
It was just Oregon’s second win over OSU in two years, but to the Ducks it proved the Beavers were no longer the only baseball power in the state.
“Any time you get to play Oregon State it’s a big game,” said first baseman Jack Marder, who went 2 for 4 with a home run, two runs scored and two RBI. “I don’t really know, I’m only a freshman, but I know these seniors and guys who were around last year were amped to play them. It was good to get a win.”
Housey earned the win for the Ducks, throwing three innings of one-hit, no-run baseball. Then Madison Boer came in and pitched the next four innings, giving up four hits and one run. Head coach George Horton said the real story of the game was Housey’s start on a pitch count, but the Ducks continued their hot-hitting ways, led by the bats of Marder, left fielder Marcus Piazzisi, and right fielder Steven Packard.
Piazzisi had two triples in four at-bats to go along with four RBI, and Packard had three hits. Packard also had eight hits in the USC series.
“I’m seeing the ball really, really well right now,” Packard said. “Coach said as a freshman you start off slow. But seeing pitches and seeing pitchers, I’ve learned to see the ball well.”
The scoring started in the third for Oregon, after it scattered two hits in the first two innings. With two outs, leadoff hitter KC Serna singled up the middle, and Piazzisi hit his first triple of the game to score Serna. Then, with the play presumed to be over, OSU catcher Andrew Susac walked to the mound, thinking he had time out. But the home plate umpire never granted it to him and Piazzisi sprinted home to score the second run.
“(Third base coach Jay Uhlman) was the one who gave me the idea,” Piazzisi said. “And it was good, it was clutch. I didn’t know. He was paying attention, told me he didn’t call timeout, and he was already at the mound by that point. It was a pretty easy call.”
In the fourth, the Beaver blunders continued, allowing five Oregon runs to score. It started with a leadoff double by catcher Eddie Rodriguez, and a bunt single by right fielder Steven Packard moved him to third base. First baseman Jack Marder then hit a blooper to center field that a diving Adalberto Santos couldn’t handle, scoring Rodriguez from third.
After a sacrifice bunt moved Marder and Packard to second and third, and a strikeout by designated hitter Dylan Gavin, center fielder Curtis Raulinaitis reached on an error by the third baseman. The error allowed Packard to score and extended the inning. Serna followed with a walk, and Piazzisi hit his second triple of the game — in which the OSU center fielder and right fielder collided while trying to catch — to score Serna and Raulinaitis.
The Ducks added another run in the fifth when Marder hit a 0-2 curveball over the left-field fence off Tyler Waldron for his fourth home run of the season.
“I was just trying to battle with two strikes, (Waldron) was pitching pretty good,” Marder said. “He was the guy who was supposed to start, so we saw a lot of video on him.”
The Beavers finally scored on the top of the seventh on a home run from Susac, and again in the eighth on an RBI single from right fielder Jared Norris. They added two more in the top of the ninth off reliever Scott McGough after he loaded the bases with one out, but a double play ended the game.
Oregon has played nine games in the last two weeks, going 7-2 in that stretch, but Marder said fatigue didn’t play a factor tonight after just one day of rest. Horton knows the next time it might not be so easy — but he’ll still take the win.
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