Bears take on Oklahoma State tonight

Robin Ventura played there. So did Mickey Tettleton and Pete Incaviglia.

One of the nation’s premier college baseball programs, a perennial offensive juggernaut, will be looking to flex its muscles against a flock of young arms when Gary Ward’s 31-13 Oklahoma State University Cowboys visit Mahaney Diamond for a three-game set against the University of Maine’s 28-21 Black Bears.

The series, sponsored by Fleet Bank, will feature games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30.

Maine will also be splicing in its best-of-three NAC quarterfinal series against Northeastern with a noon game on Saturday and either a single game or a doubleheader on Sunday beginning at noon.

The problem for the Bears in their series against the Cowboys is they can’t use their top starter, Mark Ballard. And their Nos. 2 and 3 starters, Jason Rajotte and Ronnie Hewes, will probably only see a couple of innings apiece on Thursday.

So, pitchers like first-year men Matt Cassidy, Steve Coombs, Bill Allen and Kyle Kennison will get to test themselves against the team that is second in the country (behind Arizona) in runs per game (9.7).

The Cowboys have a team batting average of .320 (16th best in the country) and they have hit 76 homers.

OSU’s offensive depth is best exhibited by the fact lead-off hitter Ernesto Rivera leads the team in runs batted in with 52.

“Our seven, eight and nine hitters have done a great job getting on base,” said Rivera.

“It isn’t going to be easy playing Oklahoma State without our three best pitchers,” said Maine senior catcher Shawn Tobin. “I guess we’ll have to bring our bats. We’re definitely going to be the underdogs in the series but we’ve got to be able to work through the adversity.”

“Our young pitchers aren’t bad. They haven’t pitched much and this will give them the chance to get in some work,” said senior center fielder Chad White. “But this may not be the right team to give them work against. These guys mash the ball.”

Oklahoma State has played just once in the last two weeks due to rain and the Big Eight Tournament starts in Oklahoma City next weekend.

“This is going to be like another spring training for us,” said Ward, who has 799 career wins in 16 years at OSU. “We’ll probably use nine pitchers. Playing a quality opponent like Maine should really help us prepare for the Big Eight Tournament. And playing in front of 5,000 people who are all mad at us will create adversity and adversity is a great teacher.”

The other question for Maine is what kind of toll will the five or six nine-inning games in four days take on the Bears?

“I’ve always believed that if you have the opportunity to play every day and you get into the swing of everything, you never get tired,” said Maine Coach John Winkin. “We always seem to play well when we play a lot.”

White said fatigue will be a factor.

“It’s definitely going to be tiring,” said White. “We’ve just got to stay focused.”

“We’ve got to be mentally tough. We’ve got to suck it up,” said Tobin.

Hewes said, “When we play a big-time opponent at home, we always seem to rise to the occasion.”

Tobin added that playing a quality opponent – OSU is rankepoll and 18th in another – will help them prepare for tourney play.

The Cowboys have been paced by RF Thad Chaddrick (.384-8 homers-38 RBIs), 3B Rivera (.382-10-52) and DH Chabon Childers (.364-6-36). Sal Bando Jr. leads in homers with 12 and Hunter Triplett has 11. Maine has been led by White (.353-2-29, 30 stolen bases), Tobin (.352-5-48), 1B Gabe Duross (.347-7-39) and 2B Todd Livingston (.320-0-15).

Southpaw Jake Benz (6-1, 2.22 ERA) and righties Earl Wheeler (6-0, 3.44) and Brad Gore (6-3, 6.41) will probably start for OSU against righties Hewes (6-2, 3.90), Ryan Smith (3-2, 3.44) and Cassidy (1-3, 4.96).