Beavers buck the odds.

Byline: From Register-Guard and news service reports

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Once again, Oregon State's baseball team should come with a warning label: Back the Beavers into a corner at your own peril.

Faced with its third elimination game of the Charlottesville Regional, and its ninth over the last two postseasons, OSU rode four RBIs from Jason Ogata and stellar relief pitching to 7-3 baseball victory over Virginia on Tuesday that will bring Michigan to Corvallis for this weekend's NCAA Super Regional showdown.

At stake for the defending national champion Beavers (42-18) in the best-of-three series that starts Saturday will be a return trip to Omaha for the College World Series.

"Our kids played their hearts out," OSU coach Pat Casey said. "We played a very, very good Virginia team that was battling some injuries that certainly didn't help them out.

"I thought it was just going to come down to flat out, let's-get-it-on, who's-going-to-fight-hardest, in-the-dirt scrap. I think we're pretty pumped up right now."

Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the second inning, the Beavers rallied for three runs off Virginia starter Casey Lambert, who lasted only 1 1/3 innings after pitching the final 6 2/3 in the Cavaliers' 13-inning win over OSU on Saturday.

Lonnie Lechelt led off with a home run to tie the score at 3-3. Oregon State then loaded the bases with one out on Jordan Lennerton's double, Chris Hopkins' slow grounder and Joey Wong's single.

Darwin Barney greeted reliever Jacob Thompson with a sacrifice fly for a 4-3 lead before Mike Lissman walked to reload the bases. Ogata then singled Hopkins home, but Wong was thrown out at the plate.

OSU added two insurance runs in the sixth when, again with the bases loaded, Ogata singled to drive in Hopkins and Barney.

The Beaver relievers worked out of their own bases-loaded jam in the seventh when Joe Paterson, the third OSU pitcher, induced Virginia catcher Beau Seabury to ground out to short, which Barney and Wong turned into an inning-ending double play.

Eddie Kunz, who earned the win, and Paterson, who posted his first save, pitched 4 2/3 innings of three-hit relief behind starter Mike Stutes.

Oregon State will be making its third straight appearance in a Super Regional.

Meanwhile, Michigan advanced by winning the regional at Nashville, Tenn., where the Wolverines took two out of three games from Vanderbilt, the top seed in the tournament.

The regular-season champion of the Big Ten, Michigan (42-17) apparently wasn't chosen to host the Super Regional because of construction on its baseball facility. The Beavers have played Michigan twice previously, winning two games during the 2002 season.

The Wolverines won their regional title in dramatic fashion when freshman Alan Oaks, hitting .188, smashed a pinch-hit home run in the 10th inning off Vandebilt's David Price, named recently as the top pitcher in college baseball and expected to be one of top picks Thursday in the professional baseball draft.

`Oaks made me look better than I am,' Michigan coach Rich Maloney said after the 4-3 victory on Monday night. `The chances of him actually doing it were not a high percentage ... it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.'

This is Michigan's third consecutive year in the NCAA tournament, though the Wolverines have never played in a Super Regional. Michigan's last appearance in the College World Series was in 1984, and it won national titles in 1953 and 1962.

Right-hander Zach Putnam (8-4, 4.13 earned run average) is expected to be the starting pitcher in Michigan's first game at the Super Regionals.

ON THE WEB

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