April 30, 2008
Box Score
DAVIS, Calif. - UC Davis scored four runs in the eighth inning to overcome a two-run deficit, and junior Justin Fitzgerald tied the school record with his eighth save of the season to lift UC Davis to a 10-8 upset victory over No. 3 Stanford Wednesday afternoon in a non-conference baseball game at Dobbins Stadium.
The Aggies have now won four of their last five games against Stanford and complete a season sweep over the Cardinal, who they defeated 9-8 earlier in the month, to improve to 27-15 overall. The loss marks a season-high three-game skid for Stanford as they fall to 25-15-2. The win also marks the Aggies' first win over a top-five ranked team since knocking off No. 1 Cal State Fullerton in 2006.
"We needed a bit of confidence heading into this weekend," said Aggie coach Rex Peters. "It was a pretty ugly game, but we woke up some bats today and just found a way to win. For some reason we just match up well with Stanford and play them tough."
UC Davis scored four runs in the eighth inning to erase a two-run deficit. The Aggies opened the inning with three straight singles from Ryan Royster, Evan Hudson and Ty Kelly to load the bases. Jake Jefferies hit a two-run single to tie the score and Kyle Mihaylo singled in the eventual game-winning run following a Ryan Scoma walk. Jefferies scored the insurance run on a wild pitch.
Jefferies' two RBI's were a team-high and leaves him one shy of 50 on the season. Royster hit his eight home run of the season in the sixth inning and finished with two RBI's and a game-best three hits. Kevin James was the third Aggie to drive in two runs in the game while Scoma doubled and drove home a run. All nine Aggie starters had hits in the game as they totaled 16 hits overall.
Fitzgerald recorded the final two outs of the game to tie the single season record with his eighth save of the year. Andy Suiter allowed only one hit in 1.1 innings of work to get his second victory of the season.
The Cardinal got on the board first in the second inning with two runs. The Aggies scored four runs in the bottom half of the inning and added another in the third to take a 5-2 lead. James singled home two runs to start the scoring in the second and then scored later in the inning on a two-base fielding error on the center fielder. Royster drove in the fourth run off a single to right field to cap the inning. Scoma double home the run in the third.
Stanford then scored four runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth to jump out to an 8-5 lead. Jason Castro had an two-run single in the fourth to higlight the Stanford offense.
Royster's solo homer in the sixth inning cut the lead to two, 8-6, heading into the later innings. After giving up eight runs through the first six innings of the game, Jeremy McChesney came on in the fifth inning and pitched 2.2 scoreless innings while striking out two batters to keep the score close.
"McChesney came in and really pitched well for us in the middle innings and that was the difference in the game," said Peters.
Jake Schlander had a game-high three RBI's and Colin Walsh had three hits and scored three runs to lead the Cardinal offense. Drew Storen gave up the four runs in the eighth inning in his third loss of the season.
The game was two minutes shy of four hours, which was the third-longest game of the season for UC Davis. Their longest outing was four hours and 14 minutes on April 9 at Stanford during their 9-8 victory in 12 innings.
The Aggies host No. 21 Long Beach State in a Big West Conference series at Dobbins Stadium this weekend. Friday's game is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.
