By Craig Degel
Arizona Daily Wildcat
As the weather in Tucson began to heat up over the weekend, so did the 18th-ranked Stanford Cardinal.
After late-inning 12-8 and 8-5 victories in the first two games of a three-game series against the Arizona baseball team this weekend, the Cardinal wanted to leave no doubt in the third game.
So, behind the pitching of freshman Kyle Peterson, who at one point retired 12 straight Wildcats, Stanford went out and notched an 18-3 victory over the Wildcats yesterday at Frank Sancet Field.
"He's as good as we have had for a freshman," Stanford coach Mark Marquess said of Peterson. "He's always come up big and won it for us."
Calling Peterson "as good as we've had for a freshman" might be a questionable statement considering the pitchers who have come before him in Palo Alto. Current major league stars Jack McDowell and Mike Mussina both played their college baseball for Stanford, but Peterson's statistics speak for themselves.
The big righthander from Omaha, Neb., upped his record yesterday to 6-1 overall and a perfect 4-0 in Pacific 10 Conference South play and sports a 3.06 ERA.
"It's a good feeling to go out week after week and throw the ball well and be competitive," said Peterson, who will turn 19 next Sunday.
The Cardinal bats gave Peterson all the runs he needed and then some. The lineup took advantage of six Wildcat errors on the day. Stanford scored three runs in the first, second, and fourth innings. The fourth inning was highlighted by Steve Carver's fourth homerun of the year Ä a two run shot off reliever Ben White.
Unfortunately for Arizona, the Cardinal was just heating up. Things got ugly in the fifth as Stanford scored seven more runs to take a 17-3 lead.
The Wildcats manged just five hits on the day, two of those came off the bat of Scott Kidd. Kidd doubled and singled and has at least two hits in his last nine games.
With the victory, the Cardinal upped their record 19-12 overall and 10-4 in the Six-Pac to take over the top spot in the division. The loss was the 12th in the last 13 games for the Wildcats who fell to 15-23-1 and 3-12 in the Six-
Pac.
"We were pretty short today," UA coach Jerry Kindall said. "We got pummeled pretty good. We we're never really in it."
The Wildcats will travel to Berkeley this weekend to take on the Cal Bears who have been anything but "Bad News" except to other teams. The Bears swept the Wildcats at Sancet Field over spring break and are in sec