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Will Matthiessen earned the win in relief and drove in the game-winning run in the eighth inning to lift No. 12 Stanford to a 6-1 win over Pepperdine on Sunday at Tempe Diablo Field.
“I tip my cap to Erik Miller and Will Matthiessen,” said Stanford coach David Esquer. “It took us a while to finally get the bats going and those guys really kept us in a game that was much closer than the score indicated. This was probably the best we’ve ever seen Matthiessen on the mound.”
Miller started the game and tied a career high with nine strikeouts, exiting after five innings while allowing four hits and two walks.
Matthiessen, who started at designated hitter, replaced him, tossing the final four frames with a career-high six strikeouts. Matthiessen drove in the winning run with a double in the bottom of the eighth, part of a five-run inning.
The Cardinal (3-0) scored first after Miller struck out the side in the top half of the first. Kyle Stowers reached on an error and scored on Tim Tawa’s double. Pepperdine responded with a run of its own in the second when Duncan McKinnon’s two-out single brought home Matt Kanfer.
The Waves (3-1) threatened again in the third, but Miller pitched around a jam with two runners on, upping his strikeout total to seven after three. The junior continued to mow down the Waves, adding another strikeout in a 1-2-3 fourth and his ninth in the fifth. The fifth ended when Maverick Handley fired a rocket to Brandon Dieter at second to catch Quincy McAfee attempting to steal.
Handley led off the home half of the fifth with a walk and stole second, but was eventually stranded at third. Matthiessen replaced Miller to start the sixth, striking out the side to pitch through a pair of baserunners.
Stanford stranded a pair of runners in the bottom of the sixth and Matthiessen pitched out of another jam in the seventh. The junior allowed a one-out triple down the right-field line, but induced a pair of ground balls to escape unscathed before working a quick, 1-2-3 eighth.
Stanford finally got the breakthrough in the home half of the eighth with a flurry of hits. Matthiessen started the rally with a double to center to score Andrew Daschbach, who reached on an error and set up Austin Kretschmar’s first career hit, an RBI single to left. Christian Robinson made it 4-1 with a double off the top of the right-field wall. He eventually scored on Handley’s single up the middle.
Stowers roped a double into the left-field gap to score Handley and give Matthiessen a healthy lead in the ninth. Matthiessen finished the job with a 1-2-3 ninth, earning the win.
Stanford wraps up its four-game road trip with a noon game against Grand Canyon in Tempe. Freshman righty Alex Williams makes his collegiate debut for the Cardinal.
“Tomorrow will be another tough test for us,” said Esquer. “Grand Canyon is a postseason team with a lot of firepower, but it’s a great opportunity for us.”
Men’s tennis
No. 10-ranked and No. 9-seeded Stanford won four consecutive singles matches, punctuated by a three-set clincher from Timothy Sah, to earn a 4-1 victory over No. 4-ranked and No. 4-seeded Florida Sunday night at the ITA National Team Indoor Championships.
The Cardinal (7-2), facing its fifth consecutive top-20 foe away from The Farm, responded quickly and convincingly from a doubles-point defeat to hand the Gators (6-2) their second defeat of the year.
Freshman Alexandre Rotsaert got it started with a 6-4, 6-2 win at No. 2, followed moments later by sophomore Axel Geller’s 6-2, 6-1 win over No. 20 Oliver Crawford at No. 1.
Next, it was senior Sameer Kumar with a 6-3, 6-3 win to inch the Cardinal closer.
However, the real drama was playing out at No. 6, where Sah dropped his first set (2-6) and was one game from elimination at 4-5 in the second set to Florida’s McClain Kessler.
Sah seized momentum in the match from there, storming back to earn a 7-5 second-set victory. The sophomore then went up early in the decisive third set and held off Kessler for a 7-5 match-clinching win.
Stanford plays its next eight dual matches, beginning Friday against UC Davis at 2 p.m. at Taube Tennis Stadium.
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