Wound up celebrating part of Mother's Day this year at Goss Stadium in Corvallis, as my parents, OSU baseball season ticket holders for the last few years, wound up with the tickets from their neighbors who couldn't attend today, and most of our family today was in attendance together, which pleased them no end.
My first time at Goss, a nice place to watch a game, with some prime seats behind home plate (square behind home plate, a couple of rows in front of Mike Parker in the broadcast booth, luckily I could only hear him when it was really quiet).
The Cougars struck in their half of the first, behind designated hitter Travis Coulter hitting the ball in the gap between center and right for a triple; I wasn't sure Coulter was going to make it to third but his aggressive base running set the tone for the game, and he wound up scoring on the next batter's sacrifice fly. Coulter wound up with three hits, adding two doubles to the triple, for an impressive outing.
Jayson Miller, a left hander for the Cougs, pitched very well, allowing just four hits in his eight innings, and was hardly challenged at all by the Beavers. The home side could only manage one run, in the bottom of the second, against Miller with Jason Ogata, who had doubled, scoring on a single by Braden Wells.
It was when the relief pitcher for the Cougars in the ninth took over that the Beavers rallied, scoring twice, started once again on a double by Ogata, and then a two-run homer by Mike Lissman to cut the lead in half. The Beavers had two more runners on at first and second, but Lonnie Lechelt hit into an unusual double play to end the game (the Beaver fans behind me thought the second basemen had trapped the ball, but apparently he did not, and he doubled off the lead Beaver runner who tried to take third base).
It was a good time regardless, as I had no horse in this race, I didn't particularly care who won, all I wanted was a good, close game, which I got, and no one gave me crap for wearing my Oregon sweater. It was also nice to see an old childhood friend working the security detail, he remembered all of us, as well as a Beaver co-worker, who has long implored me to "educate" myself watching the Beavers baseball team. Well John, I still don't like the metal bats at all, but it was nice to see the effort taken to provide a lovely home field advantage, and my hat's off to you for being part of that; now all you have to do is show up at any place showing the Champions League final on the 23rd between AC Milan and Liverpool and then we'll be even.
Some of the rest of the details from the game can be found HERE.
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