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Stute-pendous

A stud pitcher out of high school, ace Mike Stutes has excelled at Oregon State after deciding to transfer home from Santa Clara

Casey Grogan

Issue date: 5/2/07 Section: Sports
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With Dallas Buck and Jonah Nickerson departing from last year's 2006 national championship team, Mike Stutes has emerged as the Beavers ace in 2007. The Pac-10 honors candidate enters this weekend's series at Washington with a 9-1 record, a 2.90 ERA, and 77 strikeouts.
Media Credit: Andrew Burton
With Dallas Buck and Jonah Nickerson departing from last year's 2006 national championship team, Mike Stutes has emerged as the Beavers ace in 2007. The Pac-10 honors candidate enters this weekend's series at Washington with a 9-1 record, a 2.90 ERA, and 77 strikeouts.
A year at Santa Clara and a year in the shadows at Oregon State has allowed pitcher Mike Stutes to do a couple of things: learn from the best and grow up.

While Lake Oswego High School is now known as the school of Kevin Love, a few years ago it was Stutes who was the big name in the Lakers' halls. The 17-year-old senior was already a dominant force on the hill for the school's baseball team, but entering that fall his focus was elsewhere.

In the fall of 2003, Stutes stood behind center as an all-league quarterback while taking recruiting calls regarding baseball. The constant bombardment of calls from college coaches led Stutes to make a quick decision. Stutes decided on Santa Clara and looked forward to being away from home and going his own way.

"It started to stress me out so I kind of jumped the decision of Santa Clara," Stutes said.

"It was the first school I felt comfortable with so I said 'alright I'm going there.' By senior year it felt like I was getting everything handed to me, so I felt it would be good to get out of my comfort zone. Spending a whole year away from home never being able to come home, it was a good experience for me."

As his final year at Lake Oswego wound down, Stutes was helping to lead his baseball team into the playoffs. Stutes dominated the Three Rivers League, leading the Lakers to the conference title. It was an obvious that head coach Jake Anders would allow Stutes to pitch his way to a state title.

"When we were on our stretch run in 2004 he was lights out," Anders said. "He pitched an 18 strikeout, no-hitter against Wilson in the first round and 10-2 game against Gresham in the third round. In the semi's against South Salem he did not have his best stuff but still kept them to three runs. In the final he was just lights out."
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