Anton Maxwell picks up win in long relief as Beavers win series with Cal

By Brooks Hatch
Gazette-Times reporter

Anton Maxwell has had more ups, downs, twists and unexpected turns in his Oregon State baseball career than the crabbers on the “Deadliest Catch” boats plying for riches in the Bering Sea off his native Alaska.

Eight days removed from a horrific outing against USC, the compact

(5-9, 185) lefty from Anchorage reeled in a full pot on Sunday in a 5-3 Pacific-10 Conference victory over California before a Goss Stadium crowd of 1,759.

Maxwell threw four innings of two-hit relief of starter Daniel Turpen and earned his third win in as many decisions this year and the 17th in 21 at OSU. He and sophomore Mark Grbavac bridged the gap to closer Eddie Kunz, who saved his second game of the weekend with a perfect ninth to enable OSU (28-8, 4-5) to win the contentious Pacific-10 Conference series.

It was another giant step forward in a career that bottomed out last June when Maxwell was suspended for the second time in eight months for an alcohol-related arrest during the NCAA Super Regionals. He did not accompany the Beavers to the College World Series and thus missed the final push to the NCAA championship, and the ensuing celebrations in Omaha, Portland and Corvallis.

“It was tough but you have to have faith in your teammates,” he said Sunday, reflecting on the past year while a slew of youngsters waited patiently nearby for his autograph. “That’s what matters, win or lose, your relationship with your teammates.

“It’s great being a Beaver, I love it here. Stuff happens and you learn from your mistakes; life is a learning experience. You do something wrong, you change what you need to change to better yourself.

“This is my last year I can play college ball. It feels good being on this team, the atmosphere is great, and everything is preparing me for the road ahead.”

It was likewise a big day for OSU, which gained a game on Pac-10 leader Arizona when the Wildcats fell at Stanford. Drew George’s second-inning two-run homer erased a 2-0 deficit and seemed to jerk the offense out of a weekend-long slumber that had seen OSU score just one run in 19 innings to that point.

“It was very important. We’d been struggling a bit,” said George, who ended Saturday’s 4-0 loss by grounding into a bases-loaded force out. “To give the team a boost and get us going was awesome.”

Mike Lissman’s two-out single in the third put OSU up 3-2. California touched Maxwell for the tying run in the fourth, but RBIs by Chris Hopkins and Jason Ogata in the fourth and fifth sent OSU back ahead 5-3 and Maxwell, Grbavac and Kunz allowed only one hit over the final five innings.

Maxwell had also relieved Turpen, this time with the bases loaded, against USC on April 7. He hit a batter to force in one run, then gave up a grand slam and a single as the Trojans turned a 5-2 disadvantage into a 7-5 lead on his watch.

He did throw a perfect inning against Portland in a 12-4 victory this past Tuesday and said he felt as if his arm was regaining the magic it had in 2005, when he went 11-1 as the No. 2 starter on the first of OSU’s back-to-back Pac-10 championship/CWS clubs.

“I wasn’t prepared for that (USC) situation, but things happen and you have to shake it off,” Maxwell said. “You have to regroup, like I did today. (Tuesday) helped, I was touching 90 again.

“My velocity is coming back. That’s a confidence booster knowing my arm is getting back there. I got ahead, they chased some, swung at some bad pitches, and we made great plays.

“[He threw] an inning at a time, one pitch at a time. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, I tried to think of what was happening then and there. I had really good concentration.”

The Beavers conclude their 10-game homestand with a Friday-Sunday nonconference set with UNLV. Their next Pac-10 series is April 27-29 at Stanford.

“We’d love to be playing at the top of our game for all 56, but it just doesn’t happen,” OSU coach Pat Casey said. “But we went through a weekend where we didn’t play well and won two of three. Hopefully it will give us a boost.”

Added Maxwell: “The sun came out today, everything started clicking. We had a couple rough innings, but we battled, held them, scored when we needed to, and put the pressure on them.”

Oregon State 5, California 3

CALIFORNIA 200 100 000 — 3 8 1

OREGON STATE 021 110 00x — 5 6 0

Nunez, Ferguson (4), Bennigson (5), Gorgen (6) and Cutler. Turpen, Maxwell (4), Grbavac (8), Kunz (9) and Canham. WP: Maxwell (3-0). LP: Nunez (2-2); S: Kunz (6). 2B: Cooper (UC), Smith (UC), Santschi (OSU.) HR: Capbarat (UC), George (OSU).

Hits: California 8 (Cooper 2, Karnofsky, Smith, Capbarat, Kobernus), OSU 6 (George 2, Canham, Lissman, Ogata, Santschi).

RBIs: California 3 (Capbarat, Karnofsky, Cutler), OSU 5 (George 2, Hopkins, Lissman, Ogata).