June 28, 2007

Anteaters’ fantastic run finally ends at series
UC Irvine falls to Oregon State, 7-1.
BY JANIS CARR THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

OMAHA, NEB. Long before the sun slipped behind Rosenblatt Stadium last week, it was evident the magic, karma or whatever that had gotten UC Irvine this far in the College World Series was gone. And when darkness fell, the Anteaters were gone, too.

Fatigue, a lack of fresh pitchers and a hot-hitting Oregon State team combined to spoil the Anteaters’ post season run with a 7-1 loss in front of a crowd of 29,921 — many of whom were pulling for the new kids on 13th Street.

Unlike the previous night, the near-sellout crowd didn’t stick around to see if the fourth-ranked Anteaters had any more late-inning tricks. As soon as Matt Morris grounded into a double play to end the eighth inning, they headed for the exits.

The game, as far as they could tell, was over. It was.

Oregon State’s Joe Paterson came in for starter Daniel Turpen in the ninth and retired the side to send the Beavers to the championship round and the Anteaters home to Orange County.

“A magical run has come to an end unfortunately,” Irvine coach Dave Serrano said. “I don’t know if I will really understand what happened this year and what this program and what this team achieved this year until the emotions go away after the loss today. It might take some time.”

What happened was simple. There was too much emotion and not enough effective pitching or adrenalin left to stop the defending national champion Beavers.

“Sure, there was some fatigue. I’m sure we’re a little tired just from the emotions from winning the past two games,” Serrano said.

“We went to Texas and Wichita (for the regional and super regional) – I don’t know how many days we’ve been on the road. But that’s not an excuse. We got beat by a better team today. You have to tip your hat to Oregon State.”

The Anteaters (47-17-1) had won back-to-back games with extra-inning heroics against Cal State Fullerton and Arizona State, but there was little of that emotion evident as Irvine fell behind, 4-0, in the third inning.

The Beavers scored their first run on a throwing error by third baseman Tyler Vaughn. Leadoff hitter Chris Hopkins was hit by a pitch and went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Joey Wong. Vaughn then scooped up Mike Lissman’s weak infield single and threw it to first, but the throw was high, forcing Taylor Holiday off the bag.

Hopkins never stopped running and crossed the plate for the first run.

Mitch Canham’s two-run home run to right center, his first homer since May 18, off Irvine starter Christian Bergman (0-4) put Oregon State up, 3-0, and John Wallace’s runscoring triple on the next atbat made it 4-0.

Oregon State added runs in the fifth, seventh and eighth.