LOS ANGELES — Vanderbilt jumped out to a 5-1 lead after two innings and withstood a late Oklahoma State rally to capture a 7-6 win Sunday morning at Dodger Stadium.
The game was played in front of 1220 fans at Dodger Stadium in the first game of a doubleheader, with USC playing UCLA in game two.
Vanderbilt improved to 6-1 on the year and finished 2-1 in the Dodgertown Classic, while OSU fell to 1-1.
The Commodores built a 5-1 lead and then a 7-4 lead heading into the eighth inning when the Cowboys plated two runs and had the tying run at third base with two outs. Russell Brewer got Luis Uribe to pop up to short to end the rally.
OSU had one final chance to tie the game in the ninth when Dusty Harvard reached on an infield single. Davis Duren failed to execute on a bunt attempt in the next at-bat, popping up to Andrew Giobbi behind the plate for the first out. Brewer then struck out Kevin David looking, before getting Tom Belza to ground out to second to end the game.
Richie Goodenow (1-0) pitched 4.2 innings of solid relief, allowing just one run on two hits with three strikeouts and a walk in the winning effort. Brewer closed out the game with 1.1 innings of two-hit relief, with a strikeout to earn his first save of the season.
“You get used to playing at a high anxiety level,” said Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin on the tight contest. “Not that you want to play at that level, but it’s good to know that you can play through it and you will be better the next time it happens. Even though we may have not thought we should have been in that position (losing a big lead in the game), we were and I thought we handled it well. I thought Russell was a little bit anxious, but settled down and did a nice job. We closed it down and it was great.”
Aaron Westlake went 2-for-4 with a two-run double and two-run homer to lead the Dores. Brian Harris and Curt Casali each had two hits, while Andrew Giobbi added a single and two RBI to help lead the 10-hit attack.
“It was alot of fun, we came out ready to play after a long, tough night,” said Westlake after the game. “We came back and rebounded, I thought we did pretty well. Offensively we faded a little bit at the end, but had the defense and pitching to get it done.”
The Commodores jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, courtesy of a two-run double by Westlake and a Giobbi RBI single through the left side.
Oklahoma State plated an unearned run off VU starter Jack Armstrong in the bottom half, when Davis Duren led off with a single, stole second, moved to third on a throwing error by Giobbi and scored on a sacrifice fly RBI by Kevin David.
VU added two more in the second on Westlake’s homer to left, his first of the season, to extend the lead to 5-1.
OSU took advantage of two Commodore errors in the fourth to plate three runs and cut the lead to 5-4. Armstrong had a throwing error on a possible double play attempt and saw his outing cut short as Richie Goodenow came on in relief. Dean Green had the big hit in the frame, a two-run single. He ended up 2-for-3 in the contest with two RBI to lead the Cowboys.
Armstrong allowed four runs, one earned, on four hits in three innings with two strikeouts and a walk in the no-decision.
Vanderbilt plated two runs in the sixth on a wild pitch and a bases loaded walk to Andrew Giobbi.
OSU made it interesting in the eighth, scoring two runs on Dane Phillips’ RBI single to center off of Russell Brewer to cut the lead to 7-6.
Vanderbilt will return home on a 1 a.m. flight and arrive in Nashville Monday around 9 a.m. They will be back in action at Hawkins Field on Tuesday against Tennessee Tech at 4 p.m.
