Oregon State got the timely hit necessary to even the series with Oregon.
With two on and two out in the seventh Micah McDowell hit a three-run home run to left-center that put the Beavers ahead and closed out a 4-2 win over the No. 25 Ducks Saturday afternoon at PK Park.
It snapped an 11-game win streak for Oregon (20-8, 7-4 Pac-12), which didn’t have a batter reach base after relinquishing the lead.
UO’s Logan Mercado got into and out of a two-on, two-out jam in the top of the third and Oregon got on the board in the bottom of the inning.
Dominic Hellman drew a leadoff walk and scored on a single by Rikuu Nishida, who came around on an RBI double by Drew Cowley to make it 2-0 after three.
Oregon State got on the board in the fourth when Brady Kasper smashed a 3-1 pitch from Mercado 414 feet to dead right. Mercado allowed the one run on three hits and four walks and struck out six over 5.0 innings in a no-decision.
OSU’s Jacob Kmatz allowed two runs on three hits and two walks and struck out three over 5.0 innings.
McDowell smacked an 0-1 pitch for a three-run home run to left-center to put Oregon State ahead and Matthew Grabmann’s day ended one batter later. Grabmann allowed three runs on three hits, two walks and a hit batter over 1.2 innings.
Ryan Brown closed out the win for Oregon State (19-11, 6-8) with a six-out save.
The teams will play the deciding game of the series at noon Sunday.
The Oregonian/OregonLive will update this story.