University of Minnesota Athletics
Strong Pitching Leads Gophers Past Sacramento State
3/17/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
The Minnesota baseball team (6-7) defeated Sacramento State (4-13) 3-1 at John Smith Field in Sacramento, Calif. on Wednesday, Mar. 16. With the win the Gophers are now 2-2 on their eight-game California trip.
Minnesota was led by strong pitching and clutch-hitting on the day. The strong pitching came from four Gopher hurlers who combined to limited Sacramento State to one run on six hits, while redshirt freshman Dan Olinger (Great Falls, Mont.) provided the clutch-hitting.
With the Gophers trailing 1-0 in the top of the sixth, Olinger delivered a two-run triple that plated Trip Schultz (Forest Lake, Minn.) and Kyle Geason (Eden Prairie, Minn.). Schultz had just doubled and Geason had been a hit by a pitch to make it first and second with two outs. Both Schultz and Geason got on base on the first pitch they saw, and Olinger did the same as the Gophers turned the tide of the game in three pitches. With Matt Puhl (North St. Paul, Minn.) up at the plate, Olinger scored on a heads up base-running play when he came home on a wild pitch to make it 3-1.
Freshman Tom Windle (Maple Grove, Minn.) had a strong outing in his first career start to pick up a win to move 2-0. Windle went five innings, gave up four hits, one run, did not walk a batter and struck out five. Redshirt freshman Alex Tukey (San Diego, Calif.) gave up one hit, one walk and struck out two batters in two scoreless innings of relief.
Billy Soule (Hamel, Minn.) pitched a scoreless eighth inning, and Scott Matyas (North Prairie, Wis.) slammed the door with a perfect ninth inning to collect his fourth save of the season. The Gopher pitching staff only gave up two hits after the second inning in the game.
Sacramento State starter Karl Maas took the loss to fall to 1-2, as he gave up six hits, three runs, did not walk a batter and struck out two in six innings of work. Brandon Creel came on a pitched three scoreless innings of relief as he faced the minimum amount of batters in his outing.
Olinger finished the afternoon 2-for-4 with a run, a triple and two RBI in his first career start for the Gophers. Schultz was also 1-for-4 with a run, while Geason scored Minnesota's other run.
Junior shortstop AJ Pettersen (Minnetonka, Minn.) went 1-for-4 in the game to give him a hit in all 13 Gopher contests in 2011. Pettersen has a 16-game hitting streak going back to 2010. Justin Gominsky (Mahtomedi, Minn.) also went 1-for-4 to extend his hitting streak to 10 games.
Sacramento State jumped out to an early 1-0 lead with a single run in the top of the second. Andrew Ayers led off the inning with a double, however, Windle battled back to retire the next two batters. Carter Loud plated the Hornets' only run of the day with an RBI single to give Sacramento State the early lead.
Loud finished 2-for-3 with an RBI, while Ayers was 1-for-3 with a double and a run.
Minnesota will be back in action when it faces Sacramento State on Thursday, Mar. 17 at 4 p.m. (CT). That game can be heard in the Gold Zone.
