May 22, 2005

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Billy Hart and Darin Vieira had four RBI each while freshman Anthony Encinas (Norwalk/Santa Fe HS) threw 5 1/3 no-hit innings in relief as the No. 21/20 USC Trojans salvaged the Pac-10 series with a 12-2 win against the No. 3/5 Oregon State Beavers. USC remains in third place in the conference standings.

Jonah Nickerson (8-1) suffered his first loss of the season for Oregon State (41-9, 19-5). The Trojan lineup hammered Nickerson, who had a 1.31 ERA prior to the game with just 12 earned runs in 82 1/3 innings, with nine runs in 6 1/3 innings.

USC (34-18, 13-8) jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first on a two-run double by Hart and RBI double by Hector Estrella. The Trojans had a single and three doubles in the first frame. Baron Frost hit a solo shot in the fourth, his fourth of the year while Vieira hit a two-run shot in the ninth for his fifth home run. Both Hart and Vieira went 2-for-4 on the afternoon.

Hart's two-run, bases-loaded single knocked Nickerson out in the seventh as the Trojans went on to score four in the inning.

Encinas (6-3) replaced Brett Bannister in the third and did not allow a hit with three walks and five strikeouts. After back-to-back walks to start the OSU fifth, the freshman right-hander then retired 12 consecutive batters for the victory.

USC will host Long Beach State on Wednesday (May 25) at 7 p.m. before finishing the regular season with a Pac-10 Conference series against Stanford at Dedeaux Field. The Stanford series starts on Friday (May 27) at 7 p.m., continues on Saturday (May 28) at 2 p.m. and concludes on Sunday (May 29) at 1 p.m. All four games will be broadcast live, along with Gametracker live stats, on usctrojans.com.

USC	310-100-403---12-14-0
OSU	200-000-000---2-2-0
WP-Encinas (6-3)  LP-Nickerson (8-1)
T: 3:13  ATT: 2,431
Records: USC (34-18, 13-8), OSU (41-9, 19-5)
Bannister, Encinas (3), Koss (9) and Clement.
Nickerson, Kunz (7), Joslyn (8), Turpen (8), Campos (9) and Canham, Priseman (9).