Matt Angle Single in 10th keeps Ohio State alive in NCAA tournament, Buckeyes down Le Moyne 6-5 – Ohio State Buckeyes
6/2/2007 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
June 2, 2007
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COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Junior captain Matt Angle delivered a clutch two-out, RBI single in the bottom of the 10th inning as Ohio State stayed alive in the NCAA College Station Regional with a 6-5 win Saturday over Le Moyne at Olsen Field in College Station, Texas.
With runners on second and third and two outs in the bottom of the 10th, Angle (Jr., Whitehall, Ohio/Whitehall-Yearling) slapped a hit between the third baseman and the shortstop, bringing home J.B. Shuck (So., Galion, Ohio/Galion) with the winning run and eliminating the Dolphins (34-19).
Cory Luebke, the Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, pitched a career-high 10 innings for his ninth win and third complete game of the year. Luebke (Jr., Maria Stein, Ohio/Marion Local) improved to 9-1 despite not being as sharp as he has been for most of the year. He allowed five earned runs on nine hits, striking out seven and walking none.
The No. 3 seed Buckeyes (38-23) advance to face the loser of the winner’s bracket final between No. 1 seed Texas A&M and No. 2 seed Louisiana-Lafayette at 2 p.m. ET Sunday. The winner of that game will advance to play the undefeated team in the championship at 8 p.m. Sunday. If the undefeated team loses, the second championship game will be played Monday at 7:30 p.m. Louisiana-Lafayette sent OSU to the loser’s bracket with a 5-4 win Friday.
The winner of the regional advances to a best-of-three super regional and will play the winner of the Rice Regional that includes Rice, Prairie View, Baylor and Texas Christian.
The Buckeyes jumped out on top early, scoring a run in the bottom of the first. Angle was hit by a pitch with one out and moved to third on an Eric Fryer (Jr., Reynoldsburg, Ohio/Reynoldsburg) single and a Justin Miller (So., Dayton, Va./Turner Ashby) deep fly ball before scoring on a Jason Zoeller (Sr., Verona, Pa./Shady Side Academy) single.
Le Moyne tied it at 1-all in the top of the second before OSU regained the lead, 3-1, with two runs in the bottom of the second. Cory Rupert (Fr., Mansfield, Ohio/Mansfield Madison) and Cory Kovanda (Fr., Columbus, Ohio/Worthington Kilbourne) reached on back to back walks with one out, and after a fielder’s choice, Angle delivered with a two-RBI single.
The Ohio State lead didn’t last long as the Dolphins scored one run in the third and three more in the fourth for a 5-3 advantage.
The Buckeyes would equalize at 5-all with two runs in the bottom of the fourth. With two outs, Jacob Howell (Sr., Ashland, Ohio/Ashland) uncorked a shot over the right field wall to tie the game. It was his fourth home run of the season.
Luebke held Le Moyne scoreless for the next six innings, while the Buckeyes were held without a run for five innings until Angle’s game-winning hit in the 10th.
Eric Beaulac started for Le Moyne and only lasted five innings, giving up five earned runs on seven hits. He walked two and struck out none. Ryan Woods relieved Beaulac in the sixth and went 4.2 innings before Angle’s hit. Woods gave up just one earned run on seven hits, walking one.
The Buckeyes had 14 hits in the game, Le Moyne nine. Howell, Angle, Zoeller, Shuck, Rupert and Kovanda all had two hits in the game. Angle had three RBI and Howell two.
2007 NCAA Div. I Baseball Championship Quotes College Station Regional (Saturday, June 02, 2007)
#4 Le Moyne 5, #3 Ohio State 6 Postgame Quotes
Le Moyne head coach Steve Owens “It was a great experience playing in this regional. Every year we have a goal of getting to a regional and winning at a regional. We came up short. We want to be one of the top teams in our region every year. We want to be the best team in our conference and play well in a regional. We didn’t take that next step, which would be winning a game. This is our third year in a regional and all three teams have been good teams. I was proud of our effort. This game could have gone either way.”
Le Moyne shortstop Andy Parrino “This was definitely the type of game we expected. It was a good battle. Both teams were fighting to keep playing and not go home. We played hard and they played hard. “
Le Moyne pitcher Eric Beaulac “We’ve fielded well all season and we did a good job today. We just didn’t get the key hits. We played hard, but we didn’t get it done.”
Ohio State coach Bob Todd “If you love baseball, this was a great baseball game to watch. When you get this far into postseason, you have to rely on your upperclassmen and leadership from your older players, and that is exactly what happened today. As I’m walking off the field and looked around, and the people who made the difference for us were upperclassmen. My hats go off to them.
“Cory Luebke showed why he is the Big Ten pitcher of the year. If you watch baseball and you know baseball, you could tell that he did not have his good stuff at all today, yet he competed and battled for nine innings out there to give us a chance to put ourselves in position to win.
Ohio State winning pitcher Cory Luebke “In the middle innings I wasn’t locating my fastball as well as I normally do. Give them some credit. They were a scrappy bunch. I made some mistakes and they made me pay for it.”
