After a brief homestand, Rutgers returned to the road, this time to face the Oregon State Beavers as the Scarlet Knights visit the Pacific Northwest.
RU opened the scoring thanks to some timely baserunning in the third inning, as freshman Addie Osborne came home on an L.A. Matthews ground out to put Rutgers up, 1-0.
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While her teammates were scoring runs, starting pitcher Ella Harrison held off the Oregon State attack, as the Beavers posted zero after zero on the scoreboard.
The Knights then added insurance runs in the fourth inning to extend their lead to 3-0 as a result of a wild flurry that began with a difficult grounder off the bat of Gaelen Kelly.
Meanwhile, Harrison continued to frustrate the Beaver attack. Coming into the game, Oregon State’s three top hitters, Jada Lewis (.351), Morgan Howey (.301) and Samantha Gutierrez (.292) all sported slugging percentages over .400, but Harrison held the trio to just two hits during her time in the circle.
Meanwhile, the Knights knocked Oregon State’s starting hurler Ellie Garcia from the game after 4.1 innings, reaching her for nine hits and four runs. Garcia, who entered the night boasting a 3.20 ERA, had been prone to giving up base hits this season, having surrendered 73 in her previous 70 innings of work.
Harrison was lifted in the fifth inning in favor of RU reliever Georgia Ingle, and that’s when the Beavers finally began to mount a comeback.
Sophomore Tristian Thompson’s fourth home run of the season finally got the Beavers on the board, cutting the Scarlet Knights’ lead to three. Following a walk and a wild pitch, the Beavers had a runner in scoring position when Lewis connected with an RBI single to make the score 4-2.
Ingle then hit Howey with a pitch, and Oregon State was threatening with runners on first and second with two outs. However, Ingle was able to get Nicole Donohue on a strikeout to end the fifth inning threat.
Senior pitcher Laurelai DePew replaced Ingle with two outs in the sixth inning, and looked to close out Oregon State in the seventh.
After getting Ella Dardis to ground out, DePew struck out pinch hitter Rylei Trujillo. With Oregon State down to their last out, Lewis doubled to center, bringing the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh. The tension then grew when Lewis scampered to third on a wild pitch.
DePew then walked Howey, putting runners on the corners as Donohue came to the plate. But, DePew was able to preserve the 4-2 win with her second strikeout of the inning as Donohue went down swinging.
The Scarlet Knights will continue their tour of Oregon when they face Portland State on Wednesday, March 19. The Vikings have had their share of difficulty this season, currently 4-23 on the year.
The Vikings are led offensively by junior Grace Johnson, who is the only player with a batting average over .300 this season. Grace Kimball heads up the pitching staff (2-12 with a 5.22 ERA), and is clearly the anchor of the staff, with a club leading 60.1 innings pitched.
The game against Portland State is slated for a 6:00 p.m. start and will be carried on the ESPN+ network.
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