[Quack Attack]

NCAA baseball regional: Beavers stay alive with 13-5 win over Texas A&M

Posted by Jim Beseda, The Oregonian May 31, 2009 15:01PM

Categories: Baseball



FORT WORTH, Texas -- Oregon State's Koa Kahalehoe had five hits and drove in three runs to highlight a 18-hit attack that carried the Beavers to a 13-5 victory over Texas A&M in Sunday's NCAA regional elimination game at Texas Christian University's Lupton Stadium.

Beavers starter Jorge Reyes scattered nine hits and had five strikeouts, helping lift OSU (37-1 into Sunday's 5 p.m. match-up with the host TCU Horned Frogs. Texas A&M of the Big 12 Conference finished the season with a 37-24 record Sophomore left-hander Tanner Robles (1-3, 5.01) will start for the Beavers against TCU junior right-hander Tyler Lockwood (4-1, 4.33).

If OSU wins today's second game, the Beavers would force a deciding game on Monday at 5 p.m. for a Super Regional Berth. If TCU wins, the Beavers season will be over and the Horned Frogs of the Mountain West Conference will head to their first Super Regional in school history.
The Beavers sent 10 batters to the plate in the first inning and jumped on Aggies starter Clayton Ehlert for six runs on six hits, giving Reyes some early breathing room.

Leadoff hitter Michael Miller started the first-inning uprising when he reached safely on a strike-three wild pitch. Consecutive singles by Adalberto Santos, Kahalehoe and Ryan Ortiz gave the Beavers a 1-0 lead. Then came a two-run double by Jared Norris, a RBI-groundout by John Wallace, and RBI-doubles by Joey Wong and John Tommasini that made it 6-0.

The Beavers made it 7-0 in the second when Ortiz sent a 3-2 pitch over the left field fence for a two-out homer, chasing Ehlert from the game in favor of reliever Esteban Uriegas.
Uriegas lasted one inning, giving up a run in the third when Romero led off with a walk and scored on Tommasini's single to left, pushing the lead to 8-0.

Kahalehoe capped a three-run fifth inning with a two-run double to left that scored Miller and Santos to make it 11-0.Reyes, making his 14th start for the Beavers, took a five-hit shutout into the sixth when A&M's Joe Patterson hammered a 1-1 pitch off the scoreboard in right field for his 12th home run of the season the Aggies' 85th of the season, cutting OSU's lead to 11-1.

The Beavers added a run in the seventh when Kahalehoe singled - his seventh hit of the double-elimination tournament - and scored on a Norris groundout to make it 12-1. In the eighth, Texas A&M scored twice, but Kahalehoe singled home pinch-hitter Brett Casey to make it 13-3.
The Aggies scored a couple unearned runs in the ninth after a throwing error by Romero at third and a field error by Tommasini at second. Reyes then closed out his first complete game by get Patterson on a called third strike.