Beavers to face winner of losers bracket on Sunday, LSU or Northwestern State.

Goss Stadium at Coleman field saw record numbers on Saturday night as the Oregon State Beavers (46-10-1) took down the LSU Tigers (38-26) 14-1.

With this win, the Beavers move onto the third game of the weekend on Saturday, where they will face either NW State or LSU after the two teams play in the loser bracket.

On Friday, the Beavers defeated Northwestern State 9-3. This puts LSU and Northwestern State in the losers bracket, and the winner of that game will face OSU Sunday night at 6 p.m.

On Saturday night, the Beavers held themselves to 15 hits compared to the seven that LSU had. Senior pitcher Luke Heimlich started on Saturday and got his fifteenth win of the season, striking out three.

“The defense was huge today,” Heimlich said. “It was all over the diamond all night. In the outfield and in the infield, those plays really kept picking me up when I didn’t have my best stuff.”

As for offense, the Beavers were dominant. Sophomore catcher Adley Rutschman notched in three runs and two doubles and totaling 66 RBI for the season.

Already leading 5-0 in the fourth, the Beavers had a five-run rally in the inning. Junior infielder Cadyn Grenier led off with a double off the back fence running in two, while junior catcher Zak Taylor finished it off with two-run single that set the score to 10-0.

“The exchange that Rutschman made on the double play in the first inning was unbelievable,” Pat Casey, Beavers head coach, said. “That guy is a freak, athletically.”

Madrigal led off the seventh with his third home run, and first since Feb. 22 against Arizona. It marks the fifty-fifth home run for the Beavers this season, five shy of the school record.

Casey mentioned that he would be starting freshman pitcher Kevin Abel in Sunday’s game against either LSU or Northwestern State, regardless of the pitcher for either side.

“He’s been getting better and better, and I have all the confidence in the world in him,” Casey said.

Abel has three wins and one loss with an average 4.13 ERA for the season, making four starts and 18 appearances thus far.

Northwestern State will face LSU on Sunday at noon and OSU will face the winner of that game at 6 p.m.

Heading into the Corvallis Regional, No. 3 seed OSU faced Northwestern State University (37-23). It marks the first postseason game for the Beavers (45-10-1), and with a final score of 9-3, they performed well both on defense and on offense.

As the Demons came up to bat against the Beavers each inning, junior pitcher Bryce Fehmel didn’t let them get too far, only allowing six hits with three runs and four strikeouts.

“Early on I was getting ahead of them for the most part. When I was able to do that, I was able to throw almost every pitch in any count, and that was able to keep them off-balance,” Fehmel said.

After some slow previous at-bats, junior infielder Nick Madrigal showed why he was the 2017 Pac-12 Player of the Year, racking up four runs in three hits for the Beavers throughout the game.

In the third inning, Madrigal’s first hit got him a two-run single with bases loaded to bring the score to 2-0.

Later in the game with bases loaded in the sixth, Madrigal capped off a four-run rally with another two-run single, widening the lead to 8-1 for the Beavers.

As a junior, Madrigal has a total of 205 hits throughout his career, which ranks him eighth in the nation.

Recently being named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, junior infielder Cayden Grenier made a huge play in the fifth inning, proving why he was awarded the honor.

As the ball came flying off a hit from the Demons, Grenier went deep in the hole and threw across his body to second to Madrigal to complete a double play.

“Not too many guys in the country get to that ball and he made it look pretty easy. That’s why he’s deserving of the defensive player of the year award,” Madrigal said.

After the game, Beavers head coach Pat Casey was impressed with how his team performed.

“I thought Bryce was outstanding, got a big hit out of Nobach to get us going, Nick drove in four runs,” Casey said. “I believe offensively we need to be a little bit better but I thought we did the things we needed to do.”