Nickerson stymies WSU

PULLMAN – Oregon State pitcher Mike Stuts has a tough act to follow this afternoon.

On Friday, junior righty Dallas Buck went the distance as the Beavers cruised to a 16-1 victory over Washington State at Bailey-Brayton Field.

It was more of the same Saturday as Jonah Nickerson, another junior righty, twirled a complete game as the No. 6 team in the nation waltzed to another easy win, this one by a 10-2 margin.

“We played and we pitched really timidly,” WSU head coach Donnie Marbut said. “And you can’t do that against these guys. They’re probably the best team in the Pac-10, and you’ve got to make some breaks for yourself and we haven’t done that. This is as poor as we’ve played this year, all year.”

Much of the credit has to go to Nickerson, however, who survived a pair of early jams with minimal damage and went on to record a called strike three on his 132nd pitch to end the game. “If I got in any trouble the last two innings, we had a fresh pen,” said Nickerson, who along with Buck helped propel Oregon State to the College World Series last season. “I ran it up there in the second and third innings, but I was getting two-pitch outs (late).”

The Cougars (34-20, 9-11 Pac-10) can no longer win this penultimate conference series, and if they wish to cling to shrinking hopes of grabbing an at-large NCAA tournament bid, a win today is nearly a necessity. WSU closes its Pac-10 schedule with three games against Washington next weekend.

Although it wasn’t known at the time, Saturday’s game was decided in its first minutes. WSU starter Wayne Daman Jr. failed to find the strike zone early, walking three of the first four hitters and going to a three-ball count on all four of them. The third hitter, left fielder Cole Gillespie, drew walk No. 2 and scored run No. 3, which turned out to be all the Beavers would require.

Oregon State (37-13, 14-6) gave back two of the runs, but Gillespie fended off any further damage with a running catch near the wall to bail Nickerson out of a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the fourth inning.

“The offense did put up a couple of runs for me,” Daman said. “I really put myself in a hole. I didn’t have good command coming out of the gates and put us down by three.”

Senior Jay Miller recorded one hit to bring his career total to 301, three shy of the WSU career record.

Including today’s final game against OSU, which will begin at noon, Miller and the Cougars have five games left on the season.