The Olympian

June 21, 2007

Beavers are back in title round of CWS

The Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. - In one month, Oregon State has gone from uncertainty about making the NCAA tournament to taking the final step toward playing for a second straight national championship.

The Beavers are back in the College World Series' championship round after a 7-1 victory over UC Irvine on Wednesday night that ended the Anteaters' dramatic postseason run.

Oregon State (47-18), looking to become the first repeat champion since LSU in 1997, plays the winner of today's Rice-North Carolina game in the best-of-three finals starting Saturday.

"I don't know what the odds were three weeks ago," Oregon State coach Pat Casey said. "I'm just happy for the guys. It's kind of deja vu the way it turned out here."

Daniel Turpen allowed five hits over eight innings and Mitch Canham homered and drove in three runs in the Beavers' 11th win in 13 games since a May swoon when they lost seven of nine. They tied for sixth place in the Pacific-10 and relied on their 28-3 non-conference record to make the tournament as an at-large pick.

"When we were going through our skid, we knew it's just part of baseball," said Darwin Barney, who had two RBI singles Wednesday. "We've always been confident and have known that we're a good club, and it was just a matter of putting things together."

The Beavers have gotten three strong outings from their starting pitchers at the CWS. Turpen (10-1) didn't allow a hit after Ollie Linton's single in the fourth, and Joe Paterson pitched a perfect ninth.

Turpen said the overflow crowd at Rosenblatt Stadium motivated him.

"It's exciting going out there in front of 29,913 people," he said, reading the attendance off the box score. "It's something I like to thrive on, seeing all those people expecting you, a national champion, to play like a national champion."

The Beavers' 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.

This year they advanced by beating Cal State Fullerton 3-2 and Arizona State 12-6 before meeting UC Irvine (47-17-1), which had won three of its previous four games in its last at-bat.

North 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 as North Carolina stayed alive.

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

Ackley, one of the nation's top freshmen, 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.