The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Stanford
Wood pitches Baseball to 5-2 win over Stanford
03.07.2008 | Baseball
AUSTIN, Texas -- Junior Austin Wood held Stanford to five hits over 7.2 innings to earn the 5-2 victory in collegiate baseball action Friday afternoon at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
Wood (2-1) logged a career-high with eight strikeouts and allowed just two runs on five hits and one walk to earn the win. Chance Ruffin allowed just one hit over 1.1 innings to earn his second save of the season.
Travis Tucker and David Hernandez each scored two runs to lead the Texas offense. Tucker went 1-for-2 with two walks and one double. Hernandez was 2-for-2 and one walk.
Texas drew first blood with a run in the bottom of the first inning. Tucker drew a walk, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Herndandez and scored on a double to centerfield by Jordan Danks.
Texas (9-2) tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the third. With one out, Tucker doubled down the rightfield line. Hernandez drew a walk and a ground out by Danks put runners at second and third. A two-base fielding error by Stanford's third baseman allowed Tucker and Hernandez to score and Clark was pushed across with a single through the left side by Cameron Rupp, giving Texas a 4-0 lead.
Texas inflated the cushion to 5-0 with one run in the fifth. Hernandez hit a leadoff single to leftfield and a throwing error by Cardinal's starting pitcher Jeremy Bleich on a grounder by Danks put runners at the corners. A walk by Clark loaded the bases and Rupp drew a bases-loaded walk to push Hernandez across with an insurance run.
Stanford's runs came in the eighth inning when Jason Castro delivered a Wood offering over the fence along the rightfield line for a two-run home run, platting Joey August who reached on a pinch-hit single.
Bleich was saddled with the loss for Stanford (6-4). He allowed five runs, one earned on six hits and six walks while striking out four over six innings.
Texas and Stanford play game two of the series on Saturday with a 2 p.m. contest at UFCU Disch-Falk Field.
TEXAS POSTGAME QUOTES
HEAD COACH Augie Garrido
On LHP Austin Wood: He had great mound presence today and he's a very good pitcher. The pitching was good throughout the game.
On the offensive side of the game today: We battled today. I think their pitcher, Jeremy Bleich was very good. We had to scrap it out and we hit some balls hard and got some base runners on. I think we lost the momentum in the fifth with the bases loaded when we only scored one with nobody out. Ending the inning in a disappointing way has a tendency to let the air out. So many times when you see that, it doesn't matter which team does it, the momentum shifts right there and that's what happened to us I felt. The thing that kept us on an even keel was the pitching.
CF Jordan Danks
On the game today: I feel pretty pleased with the performance today. Stanford is one of the bigger teams that we play this year and we knew that they would come out and play hard. We came ready to play today and I thought we hit the ball well and Austin (Wood) did amazing as did Chance Ruffin when he came in and finished the game up for us.
On what the team needs to do tomorrow: We need to come out with the same mentality that we came out with today. They're probably going to come out even stronger tomorrow and we can't let up at all.
LHP Austin Wood
On his performance on the mound and his career high eight strikeouts: Eight strikeouts is pretty good. I don't really consider myself a strikeout pitcher, but as long as I keep working with the process and throwing to the mitt, I can't really control the outcome. All I care about is getting ground ball and outs for this team.
