Ducks baseball defeats Beavers in extras for seventh straight win

In baseball, it's not how you start that matters, but how you finish. On Tuesday night in Corvallis, the Oregon Ducks won their seventh straight game, defeating the Oregon State Beavers 3-2 in 11 innings.

Oregon (35-22) also clinched the season series over Oregon State, taking three out of five games against the Beavers this season.

With the game tied at 2-2 going into the 11th inning, Scott Heineman led off the inning with a double to left field, and was then advanced to third as Brandon Cuddy grounded out to second base. Kyle Kasser drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly to left field, hit deep enough to score Heineman from third.

Garret Cleavinger hit the second batter he faced in the bottom of the 11th, but struck out the final two batters to wrap up the win, improving to 4-2 on the year thanks to two near-perfect innings with four strikeouts and allowing just one batter to reach base.

The Beavers (36-15-1) had jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first half of the game. Two base hits in the bottom of the second set up a sacrifice fly for Logan Ice, putting Oregon State on the board first.

Oregon starter Conor Harber went four innings, giving up one run on three hits while striking out three and walking one.

The Beavers added to their lead in the fifth with an RBI single from Elliot Carry, scoring Caleb Hamilton who had kicked off the inning with a double down the left field line.

That would be the final run the Ducks would allow as Stephen Nogosek and Cleavinger combined for 4.1 scoreless innings, allowing just one with 10 strikeouts and no walks.

The Ducks rallied back, scoring two runs in the bottom of the eighth. After Jakob Goldfarb reached base on a throwing error, Mitchell Tolman delivered an RBI double to right center, scoring Goldfarb. On the next at bat, Phil Craig-St. Louis tied the game with a single to right center.

Oregon now returns home to PK Park this weekend to face UCLA for a three-game series to wrap up the regular season, starting on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. Should the Ducks advance to the NCAA tournament, the regional round will begin on May 29.