June 21, 2007

BEAVERS BACK IN CWS FINAL

Associated Press

Daniel Turpen allowed five hits over eight innings and defending champion Oregon State beat UC Irvine 7-1 in the College World Series last night in Omaha, Neb., ending the Anteaters' dramatic postseason run.

The win sends the Beavers (47-18) into the best-of-three championship series starting Saturday. They will play the winner of today's Rice-North Carolina game for the title.

Turpen (10-1) turned in the third straight strong performance by an Oregon State starter, not allowing a hit after the fourth inning. Joe Paterson pitched a perfect ninth.

The route to the championship series was much smoother this year. In 2006, the Beavers lost their CWS opener to Miami 11-1, then staved off elimination for four straight games to reach the finals.

Mitch Canham hit a two-run homer, Darwin Barney had two RBI singles and John Wallace added a run-scoring triple for the Beavers, who scored four unearned runs in the third inning.

OSU has won 11 of 13 games since a May swoon when the Beavers lost seven of nine, jeopardizing their hopes of returning to the tournament.

It was a disappointing finish for the Anteaters (47-17-1), who reinstated their baseball program in 2002 and were making their first CWS appearance.

The Anteaters captured the hearts of local fans by rebounding from an opening loss to Arizona State to win extra-inning games against Cal State Fullerton and Arizona State in their final at-bats.

The 13-inning win over Fullerton took 5 hours, 40 minutes, the longest game in CWS history. The 10-inning win over ASU came after the Anteaters rallied from four runs down in the eighth to win in their last at-bat for the third time in four games.

N. Carolina 6, Rice 1

Robert Woodard and two relievers limited Rice to six singles and a double, Dustin Ackley broke open the game with a three-run homer and North Carolina beat the Owls.

The Tar Heels (56-14), the 2006 CWS runners-up and No. 3 national seed, forced another game against No. 2 Rice (56-13) today. The winner meets defending national champion Oregon State in the best-of-three championship starting Saturday.

Ackley broke out of a 5-for-37 slump with a fifth-inning single for his school-record 113th hit of the season. In the seventh, Ackley lined a pitch from Chris Kelley over the right-field fence for his eighth homer and first since May 11. It was only the Tar Heels' second homer in 15 games.

Rice beat North Carolina 14-4 on Sunday and scored 29 runs in its first two CWS games. But like last year, after the Owls won their first two games here, their offense struggled. Rice was knocked out then after getting shut out twice by Oregon State.

Rice managed two hits through six innings and didn't score until the seventh.