After Kentucky Wildcats drop bomb on Oregon State baseball in Lexington Super Regional opener, Beavers pledge to ‘respond’ and ‘fight’
Hi orLEXINGTON, Ky. — After driving a dagger into the heart of the Oregon State baseball team, Ryan Nicholson cruised the final 90 feet of his home run trot sideways, staring at the Kentucky Wildcats dugout as he shuffled toward mayhem at home plate.
He scored, shrugged and smiled. His teammates mobbed him. And The Gap Band’s ′80s hit “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” echoed around the Kentucky Proud Park.
And just like that — kaboom — a bomb detonated on Oregon State’s College World Series chase.
The Wildcats bludgeoned the Beavers 10-0 Saturday night in the opener of the Lexington Super Regional, outplaying and outclassing their way to the first super regional win in program history.
Trey Pooser pitched the game of his life, the Wildcats’ small-ball offense put on a clinic and a monster seventh inning — which included that Nicholson celebration — put the game away, delivering No. 2 seed Kentucky (44-14) a commanding 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series and sending the beleaguered Beavers (45-15) reeling from their worst performance of the season.
“That was not acceptable the way that we played,” Aiden May said. “We’ve just got to jump back in. What other choice do we have (but to) respond? I believe in this ballclub. And I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people tomorrow. We’re going to come out hot and play the ballgame the way we need to.”
Perhaps the biggest surprise Saturday was that No. 15 seed Oregon State was manhandled. The Beavers suffered a shutout for just the second time this season and mustered a season-low one hit, which came on a second-inning single by Elijah Hainline. The staff coughed up its most runs since May 11, as May (7-1) suffered his first defeat of the season and four of the five OSU pitchers who saw action surrendered runs. And the defense imploded in that backbreaking seventh inning, as catcher Wilson Weber committed a pair of throwing errors.
It spoiled what had been a competitive, anything-can-happen matchup.
The Wildcats struck first in the second inning, taking a 1-0 lead when Nicholson hammered a run-scoring double off the center field wall to score Nick Lopez from second base. The inning featured a little trademark Kentucky small-ball as Devin Burkes moved Lopez into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. Three innings later, the Wildcats pushed their lead to 3-0.
May allowed a leadoff single to James McCoy, plunked Grant Smith in the helmet and walked Ryan Waldschmidt on four pitches to load the bases with no outs. Two pitches later, Emilien Pitre crushed a line drive double into the gap to score McCoy and Smith.
The timing was particularly demoralizing for the Beavers, because they had just squandered a golden scoring opportunity in the top half of the fifth. After Travis Bazzana drew a one-out walk to load the bases, Micah McDowell struck out on three pitches and Gavin Turley grounded out to third base to end the inning.
The Beavers managed just one base runner the rest of the night — a one-out walk by Trent Caraway in the seventh — as they bowed out quietly in Game 1.
“Not the best game, obviously,” OSU coach Mitch Canham said, adding later, ‘but it’s a great opportunity for us to wake up after being punched and respond tomorrow.”
The biggest punch Saturday came in that debilitating seventh inning, which turned a tight game into a laugher and featured a little bit of everything. There were two hits, four stolen bases and a sacrifice squeeze bunt by Kentucky. There were three wild pitches by Oregon State. There were two errors by Weber. And, of course, there was one game-changing swing by Nicholson.
The hard-hitting first baseman belted a 1-1 pitch to deep right-center, launching a two-run homer into a sea of blue that stood on the outfield porch. The sellout crowd went ballistic, and the Wildcats erupted in celebration, mobbing Nicholson outside the dugout after he sidestepped down the third base line.
“This is pretty sweet,” Nicholson said, when asked what was going through his head during the mayhem. “I was just lucky enough to get one out of there and go bridge, and then we look up at the board and we’ve got (reliever Jackson) Nove going in and I just had the utmost confidence in him … So it was just like, ‘That was sweet. Cool. Just go out there and play defense now.’”
