Stanford beats Notre Dame 5-3

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Posted 12:45PM on Wednesday, June 19, 2002

OMAHA, Neb. - Sam Fuld and Carlos Quentin homered and Stanford held off Notre Dame 5-3 Tuesday night and eliminated the Fighting Irish from the College World Series. The Cardinal, CWS runners-up the last two years, improved to 40-0 this season when holding the lead after eight innings. Stanford (47-17) will play Thursday against Texas in a rematch of the Longhorns' 8-7 win Monday that put the Cardinal in the elimination round. Texas needs just one win to reach Saturday's championship game of the double-elimination tournament. Steve Stanley was 2-for-3 with an RBI and a stolen base and scored a run for Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish (50-18) had 22 come-from-behind wins this season, but could not come up with one more after Stanford added an insurance run on Andy Topham's squeeze bunt in the ninth. Dan Rich got his sixth save when he struck out Joe Thaman to end the game. Rich relieved John Hudgins (10-1) who allowed two earned runs and six hits over 5 2-3 innings. Peter Ogilvie (7-5) recovered well after being down 2-0 on just three pitches, but didn't get the run support he needed. Ogilvie also went 5 2-3 innings, allowing four runs and seven hits. The Cardinal took a 2-0 lead on Fuld's second homer of the CWS and held on to it the rest of the way, although Notre Dame never fell behind by more than two runs. After Stanford went up 4-2 in the sixth on an RBI single by Jason Cooper, the Irish came right back with a run in the bottom half of the inning. Brian Stavisky led off with a single and scored when Quentin bobbled the ball right after a single by Paul O'Toole. The Irish had runners at first and second with two outs later in the sixth when Hudgins was lifted for Rich, who got out of the inning on a nice play by Topham. Topham ran from shortstop to left field and caught Javier Sanchez's pop-up while sliding on his knees in foul territory. The Irish had another great opportunity in the fifth with the bases loaded and no outs, but got just one run. Thaman popped out to second, Stanley hit a sacrifice fly to score Matt Bok from third and Steve Sollmann grounded out to short to end the inning. Carter hit Ogilvie's first pitch of the game for a single to right, then Fuld quickly followed with the homer to left that just carried over the wall. Quentin added a solo homer in the second, his 12th of the season.