Long Beach Alive to Fight On Today

Long Beach State saved Mike Gallo to pitch its third game of the NCAA West Regional baseball tournament, and the choice paid off.

“His performance was awesome,” 49er Coach Dave Snow said after Gallo shut down top-seeded Stanford on six hits, eliminating the Cardinal, 5-1, and sending Long Beach into today’s championship round at Palo Alto.

Gallo, who threw only 85 pitches, struck out only three but walked none and retired 16 Stanford hitters on ground balls.

Long Beach left fielder Jaron Madison, a senior who had never hit a collegiate home run, hit two.

Today, Long Beach State (39-21-1) plays North Carolina State, which lost to Alabama, 9-2. Alabama eliminated Loyola Marymount, 13-5, before beating the Wolfpack. The winner of the Long Beach-North Carolina State game plays Alabama later today.

Top-seeded Stanford finished 42-14-1. The Cardinal was ranked No. 1 in all major polls most of the season before dropping six of its final seven games.

Gallo (6-1), a junior left-hander who had started only seven times this season, gave up only a seventh-inning home run to John Gall. Gallo went to a three-ball count on only one hitter.

Stanford freshmen pitchers Brad Drew (1-1) and Justin Wayne held Long Beach, the nation’s second-leading hitting team with a .360 average, to six hits. But two were solo home runs in the second and eighth innings by Madison, a junior college transfer in his second season with the 49ers.

Long Beach State took a 1-0 lead in the first as Terrmel Sledge singled, stole second, was sacrificed to third and scored on Paul Day’s infield out.

The 49ers got their other two runs in the fifth with the help of two walks by Wayne, who pitched 4 2/3 innings in relief of Drew. Bryan Kennedy drove in one of the runs with a grounder.

In other regionals:

SOUTH I--Top-seeded Florida staved off elimination at Gainesville, Fla., by beating Richmond, 15-3, with the help of two homers each by Derek Nicholson and Jason Dill, and Wake Forest, 12-9.

Illinois beat Baylor, 8-7, in 13 innings and plays an elimination game against Wake Forest.

MIDWEST--Arizona State advanced to the championship game at Wichita, Kan., when Willie Bloomquist doubled and scored the go-ahead run of a 6-4 win that eliminated top-seeded Wichita State. The Sun Devils also beat Oklahoma State, 13-5. Arizona State plays the winner of the Oklahoma State-Georgia Tech game.

CENTRAL--Mississippi State used a 10-run sixth inning to beat top-seeded Rice, 15-14, at College Station, Texas. The Bulldogs also beat host Texas A&M;, 10-9, and play the winner of the game between the Aggies and Washington, a 13-6 winner over Oral Roberts, for the region title.

ATLANTIC I--German Alvarez had two home runs in each game for Miami, which beat Texas Tech, 13-0, and South Carolina, 14-3, to stave off elimination at home. The Hurricanes play the winner of the North Carolina-South Carolina game for the title.