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Friday - June 2, 2006

Austin Regional - Day 1, Game 1 (Stanford at North Carolina State)

Stanford jumped on the NC-State starter (Gib Hobson) with a vengence. They scored 1 in the 1st and 4 in the 2nd and went on to win 7-2. The Wolfpack basically went to a pitch-by-committee game plan after falling behind so far in the 2nd. Hobson pitched the first 1.2. Their second pitcher (Jason Duncan) pitched 3.2 innings and gave up one more run. Then the committee thing began: Davis High went .2 innings, Branden Knapp went 1+, Kyle Rutter went 1, Joel Brookens went .1 (giving up the final run), and Joey Cutler threw the final .2 (the 7th pitcher of the game...wow). Stanford, in stark contrast, got a complete game effort out of Greg Reynolds. He threw 123 pitches by my count and gave up 2 earned runs on 7 hits with 7 strikeouts and 2 walks. He was only one batter over the minimum through the first 5.2 innings. Amazing. His defense did help him by turning 2 double-plays in that period (3 total in the game). NC-State left 4 stranded, 3 in scoring position. I have to say that I was rather surprised that NC-State didn't make more of a game of things. I imagine that falling into that 5-run hole so early left them feeling a little shell-shocked.

On the offensive side of things, the Wolfpack managed to string together three singles in a row in the 6th. It looked like they were finally getting to Reynolds. Alas, the hits all came after two outs and they only managed to push one run across. Their final run came in the 8th when pinch-hitter Matt Mangini hit a 1-out triple to the lf/cf gap. That was followed by an RBI-single to lf by Matt Camp. Ramon Corona ended the threat, though, by hitting into one of those double-plays. Seven of Stanford's batters had at least one hit, five had at least 2. The #'s 8 and 9 batters (Randy Molina and Jim Rapoport) went a combined 6-for-7 with a sac bunt and 2 doubles. Wow. I'm wondering it they'll move up in the order tomorrow. Stanford looked solid and are in great shape going into tomorrow's action. I think NC-State will have their hands full with UT-Arlington if they play like they did today.

Scoreboard at the end of the game:

Posted by Joanna at 11:58 PM