The Beaver baseball team seals victory over Gonzaga
First baseman Garret Forrester working to get his Gonzaga opponent out at first.
April 12, 2023
The Oregon State baseball team sealed their victory after scoring six runs during the sixth inning and then another six throughout the seventh at Goss Stadium on Tuesday night.
The Beavers finished the game with a score of 15-1 with seven bases stolen, sixteen hits, twelve RBIs, and only ten strikeouts to their 42 at-bats.
The first inning started with a two-out triple from Gonzaga’s Brian Kalmer and was followed by an RBI from Sam Stem. The Beavers designated hitter Micah McDowell responded in the bottom of the first with a home run to left field.
After an electric start, the Beavers and Bulldogs did not score until shortstop Kyle Dernedde and center fielder Canon Reeder batted during the fourth inning. This was followed by two stolen bases in the fifth inning and an ‘unearned run’ for Oregon State switch-hitter Dallas Macias because the run was scored off of an error.
The sixth inning started with a walk for Reeder and then a base hit for Dernedde, pushing Reeder to third base. Sophomore second baseman Travis Bazzana walked just following this, loading the bases. Gonzaga pitcher Matthew Miller threw a wild pitch allowing Reeder to score just before Garret Forrester, the sophomore first baseman from Fair Oaks, California, drove in Dernedde and Bazzana with a hit to right center field.
“My swing felt really good, and I was really happy with my pitch selection and how I hit the ball,” said Forrester.
After scoring those three runs the Beavers turned over the batting order in the same inning, with runs-batted-in (RBI) from third baseman Mason Guerra, left fielder Dallas Macias, and catcher Wilson Weber ending the inning with six total runners for the sixth inning.
Following this, the seventh inning had the same trend. Bazzana walked after receiving zero strikes putting him on first base. Forrester was next up to the plate and got a hit to right field for a double, putting him on second and Bazzana at third. McDowell got a double RBI and then was batted in by Guerra. The right fielder, Ruben Cedillo, scored the second home run of the game, pushing in Guerra while the fans erupted in cheers, excited about the back-to-back innings scoring a multitude of runs. The last score of the game was a sacrifice bunt from Reeder as Macias ran in from third base for the score.
The Beavers while on base were distracting the Gonzaga pitchers by bouncing around and motioning like they were attempting to steal a base.
“We’ve been working on that, and that is something our coach has wanted us to work on more, especially because of other teams who do the same thing and he wanted us to get in the pitchers’ heads and then we just kind of rolled with that,” Forrester noted, “With the younger pitchers you can see it really gets in their head and they start throwing the ball all over the place.”
The Beavers play this Friday in the first game of a home series against the University of Southern California at 7:00 p.m.