Oregon State defeats New Mexico State in extra innings in Corvallis Regional opener

The Oregon State Beavers are hosting their first regional in three years during this year's NCAA Baseball Championships.

The Beavers began their run towards another national championship against the New Mexico State Aggies Friday night. After a back and forth battle, the Beavers narrowly came out on top.

Oregon State (45-15) edged the New Mexico State Aggies (24-33) 5-4 in the 10th inning at Goss Stadium in the Corvallis Regional.

The game went into extra innings before the Beavers won it with a walk-off walk. With the bases loaded, Alex Bustamante walked Justin Boyd to score the winning run for the Beavers.

Garret Forrester finished the game 3-for-5 with two RBIs. Matthew Gretler also recorded two hits for the Beavers.

Ryan Brown won his fifth game of the season as he entered the game in the ninth inning.

"Good to get the W, but obviously, we had a lot of jitters," Oregon State coach Mitch Canham said. "It is good to get them out of the way with the W in the first game.

"Had a lot of guys on base, the arms did really well, they battled. Our guys are resilient. Even though we didn't play great baseball, those guys played really well.

"Proud of our guys today, but we gotta clean some stuff up."

Turning point

Oregon State had a 2-1 lead until the top of the seventh when New Mexico State made Cooper Hjerpe pay for a walk and a couple of hit batters.

Tommy Tabak hit a one-out double to left-center, which gave the Aggies a 3-2 lead.

New Mexico State's lead was short-lived as Oregon State rallied in the bottom of the seventh. After a Justin Boyd walk and a Wade Meckler single, Garret Forrester's single to left field tied the game at 3-3.

Then Meckler gave the Beavers a 4-3 lead on a wild pitch from Ian Mejia.

Oregon State appeared to be on its way to a victory until New Mexico State right fielder Tommy Tabak's single knotted the game at 4-4 in the top of the ninth.

On the mound

Hjerpe fired strikes as he retired the side in order on three strikeouts. After allowing a hit and a run, Hjerpe retired 12 consecutive Aggie batters until the seventh inning.

That's when Hjerpe ran out of gas. He walked a batter and hit a couple of New Mexico State batters before giving up a double.

Hjerpe finished the night by going 6.2 innings and striking out 10 batters. He allowed two hits and three earned runs in the outing.

Ben Ferrer relieved Hjerpe as he ran into trouble trying to save the game in the ninth. Nolan Funke and Tommy Tabak recorded singles, which allowed New Mexico State to tie the game 4-4.

Ryan Brown pitched the rest of the ninth inning and in the 10th as he struck out three batters, including Logan Gallina.

On the other side, Mejia went deep into the game for New Mexico State as he pitched 7.1 innings after allowing nine hits and four earned runs after throwing 124 pitches.

Bustamante came in for Mejia and got the final two outs of the bottom of the eighth inning.

"Really proud of my team," New Mexico State coach Mike Kirby said. "They competed well and it was a great baseball game all-around. The atmosphere was electric.

"We didn't swing the bats as well as we liked, but we were facing maybe the top pitcher in the country. It was an exciting game, a tough way to lose."

Up Next

Oregon State will play the San Diego Toreros at 7 p.m. Saturday on ESPN2, with the winner advancing to Sunday's championship regional round. Before that, New Mexico State will face Vanderbilt in an elimination game at 1 p.m. The winner of that game will face the loser of the Oregon State and San Diego game Sunday at 1 p.m.

Canham said he expects a better performance from the Beavers against San Diego.

"We have high expectations for ourselves," Canham said. "We were in the regionals last year and it frustrated us not to move on to the next round.

"It isn't about winning supers (regionals), for us, it is about coming home and putting another trophy over there."

Contact Register-Guard sportswriter Antwan Staley at astaley@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @antwanstaley.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon State defeats New Mexico State in extra innings in Corvallis Regional opener