By Chris Jackson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 30, 1998

UA baseball short at Oregon St.

The Arizona baseball team had won 58 straight games in which it led going into the ninth inning.

Note the past tense "had."

The No. 10-ranked Wildcats (25-13 overall) blew a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning yesterday in the second game of a doubleheader at Oregon State, losing 4-3 to give the Beavers the weekend sweep.

OSU had won the first game by the score of 9-1 and Saturday's contest by a 3-2 count. Friday's game had been rained out, forcing yesterday's doubleheader.

Arizona has now lost eight consecutive games, the team's longest losing streak of the season, and 11 of its last 14. Arizona is only 2-9 on the road this season.

Beaver first baseman Matt Baillie doubled home the winning run with two outs, driving a Ryan Moskau pitch into the right field corner.

Moskau (4-3) had earlier thrown a wild pitch that allowed the tying run to score.

Arizona's runs had come on an RBI double by senior second baseman Erik Mattern, an RBI single by senior catcher Greg Clark and an RBI sacrifice fly by senior left fielder Jason Hendricks.

Reliever B.R. Cook (1-1) got the win for the Beavers.

Darrell Hussman (3-4) took the loss in the first game after giving up six runs in 5 1/3 innings.

Right fielder Rob Colley drove in five runs with a triple and two singles to lead OSU's offensive attack. Catcher Ben Bertrand hit a solo home run in both games of the double header.

First baseman Joe Gerber hit a two-run homer to complete the Beavers' scoring in yesterday's first game.

Saturday's game was a painful loss considering the great pitching performance Arizona got from junior southpaw James Johnson.

Johnson (4-2) struck out a career-high 15 batters in 6 2/3 innings pitched.

Still, third baseman Omar Moraga was the only Wildcat to rough up OSU starter Chris Pine, with his two-run single accounting for all of Arizona's scoring.

Shortstop Troy Schader cut Arizona's lead to 2-1 with a solo home run, and pinch hitter Brian Duerr's two-run single in the bottom of the sixth put the Beavers ahead to stay. Pine struck out 10 over eight innings to pick up his third win of the year.

Things do not get any easier for Arizona as in-state rival Arizona State, the No. 16 team in the country, comes to town for a three-game series starting Friday at 7 p.m. at Frank Sancet Field.