The ball soared off Aiva Arquette’s bat high onto the hill in deep left-center field at Haymarket Park, spotting the Oregon State baseball team a 1-0 first-inning lead.
It came on the seventh pitch of the game.
And it was only the beginning.
The fifth-ranked Beavers bashed a school-record eight home runs — including three by slugger Gavin Turley — as they run-ruled the Nebraska Cornhuskers 16-5 in seven innings Saturday in Lincoln, Nebraska.
After a Friday flop, it was a Saturday filled with fireworks.
Oregon State scored in all seven innings, hit homers in all seven innings, produced its most runs since the first weekend of the season and finished with 12 hits, putting on a record-setting show before 5,248.
And Turley was the star of the performance.
The junior outfielder belted three homers, tying the single-game school record, as he inched closer to the program record for career home runs. Turley hit a solo shot in the third, a grand slam in the fifth and a solo homer in the sixth during a memorable outing that saw him finish 4 for 4 with six RBIs and three runs scored.
He became the 10th player in school history to club three homers in a game, joining the likes of Travis Bazzana (2024), Mason Guerra (2024), Jacob Melton (2021), Andy Jarvis (2001) and Jim Wilson (1982). Turley, who also hit a home run in Friday’s series opener, now has seven this season and 40 in his OSU career, five shy of Bazzana’s career record (45).
For now, however, Turley — who extended his hitting streak to 10 games — will have to relish his part in a team record. The Beavers’ eight homers broke the previous school record of seven, set four times between 2000 and 2024.
Arquette’s blast on the seventh pitch of the game lit the first round of fireworks, and they continued to erupt the rest of the day, as six Beavers hit home runs in all seven innings. In addition to Turley and Arquette, Jacob Krieg belted a two-run homer in the second, Wilson Weber clubbed a solo shot in the third, Easton Talt hit a three-run home run in the fifth and AJ Singer added a two-run blast in the seventh.
All told, nine of the Beavers’ 12 hits went for extra bases, as seven different players recorded hits and drove in runs.
Turley, Weber (2 for 4, double, homer) and Krieg (2 for 4, homer, two RBIs) finished with multi-hit efforts, helping the Beavers build a 14-1 lead in the sixth inning.
The beneficiary of the eruption was right-hander Dax Whitney (3-2), who had another memorable outing. The 6-foot-5 freshman recorded a career-high 11 strikeouts in five dominant innings, earning a win for the second time in the last three starts. He wasn’t perfect — Whitney hit three batters, walked two batters and 42 of his career-high 100 pitches were balls — but when he was on, he was overpowering.
Whitney struck out the side in the first and fanned two in every other inning he pitched, finishing the impressive performance by striking out No. 5 hitter Dylan Carey with a 2-2 curveball to end the bottom of the fifth inning.
Afterward, Whitney jogged off the mound in a blur, stopping only to give Weber a high-five, as he darted into the visiting dugout.
AJ Hutcheson (two runs, three hits) and Tanner Douglas (five hits, two runs) were shaky out of the bullpen, but did just enough in two innings of relief to maintain the Beavers’ 10-run lead and keep the mercy rule in play after the seventh.
Next up: The Beavers and Cornhuskers play the rubber match of their three-game series on Sunday at 10 a.m.
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | @freemanjoe.bsky.social | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.