Beavs walk off winners.

Byline: Bob Clark The Register-Guard

CORVALLIS - This simplified some things.

Oregon State avoided a lot of extra work, not to mention extra innings Friday night, with Shea McFeely's home run leading off the bottom of the ninth inning to beat Ohio State 4-3 in the NCAA regionals.

The capacity crowd of 2,612 in Goss Stadium at Coleman Field that had been so raucous only an inning earlier when the Beavers knotted the game with a two-out hit was momentarily in stunned silence when the home team's No. 7 hitter swung at the first pitch from Buckeyes reliever Rory Meister and launched a high drive over the 365-foot sign in left center.

By the time McFeely reached first base, the Beavers were out of their dugout and celebrating on their way to greet him at home plate and their joyous crowd was on its feet roaring as the Buckeyes trudged off as the beaten team.

`I saw in (Meister's) warmups that he was throwing a lot of fastballs,' McFeely said of his fifth home run of the season. `I was thinking that (was coming), the scouting report was that he throws a lot of fastballs.'

There it was, and there it went.

`I thought I hit it pretty good,' McFeely said.

Though it didn't work out, the Buckeyes figured the pitching change to start the ninth made sense. Meister was 8-1 with four saves and a 1.91 earned-run average. Opposing hitters had a pitiful .176 average against him, and Ohio State starter Mike Madsen had thrown 115 pitches through eight innings.

`I was physically exhausted,' Madsen said.

The victory puts the Beavers (42-9) up against St. John's tonight at 6:05. In the first game Friday, the Red Storm (40-16) defeated Virginia, 5-3. The Cavaliers (41-19) and Buckeyes play at 1 p.m. today, with the loser headed home in the double-elimination format.

That's a situation the Beavers definitely wanted to avoid so early in the weekend.

They did so by scoring on two home runs, a two-run shot by catcher Mitch Canham in the second inning and McFeely's blast in the ninth, with Cole Gillespie's RBI single in the eighth plating the run that knotted the game at 3-3 after Jacoby Ellsbury had opened that inning with a double off the the fence in center.

`I was hoping it would have been about two feet higher,' Beavers' coach Pat Casey joked later.

After Ellsbury was sacrificed to third, a strikeout, a hit batter and a walk loaded the bases for Gillespie, who crossed up the Buckeyes by swinging at a 2-0 pitch for a single to right that scored Ellsbury, though Andy Jenkins was thrown out at the plate trying to tally from second.

Never mind. The game was even at 3-3, and after a hit batter and a walk preceded him to the plate, who expected Gillespie to be swinging at that 2-0 pitch, fat as it might have been from the tiring Madsen?

`We've taken some pitches in that situation this year,' Casey acknowledged. `We flipped it there; I said go for it.'

As important as any of that was, it might not have mattered had OSU reliever Kevin Gunderson not pitched the Beavers out of a jam in the top of the eighth. He entered with runners at second and third and one out, and used a strikeout and a bouncer back to the mound - with an intentional walk in between - to keep the Buckeyes at bay and leading only 3-2.

`They've been putting me in tough situations all year,' Gunderson (6-2) said. `That's my job.'

The Buckeyes saw it as the last of their missed opportunities. They left two runners on in the fourth inning, had a runner tagged out by Canham between third and home when a suicide squeeze failed with one out in the sixth, and had two other runners trying to steal second thrown out by Canham to end innings.

`The bottom line is we needed to execute better offensively,' Ohio State outfielder Steve Caravati said. `When we had the opportunity (in the eighth) to put the game out of reach, we didn't and it came back to bite us.

`That was definitely the turning event of the game.'

Gunderson faced six batters in his 1 2/3 innings and didn't give up a hit with a strikeout, the intentional walk and four infield grounders, one of them fumbled by Beavers shortstop Darwin Barney for an error. The next batter hit another one to the freshman, who snapped it up, stepped on second and threw to first for his team's third double play - this one definitely offsetting the second error by the Beavers, who sometimes looked like a team that hadn't played a game in 12 days.

`I think we'll play better (today),' Casey said. `Kicking the rust off was good for us.'

It was either that lack of action last weekend, or a tight strike zone, that seemed to also bother Dallas Buck, the ace of the Beavers' staff. He gave up only four hits in his 7 1/3 innings but walked five batters and hit three other Buckeyes.

Four of Buck's walks were to hitters leading off an inning, and two of those turned into runs. Another ended up stranded at third, courtesy of Gunderson's relief work.

`They frustrated Dallas. They didn't swing at a lot of bad pitches,' Casey said. `He kind of fought himself a little bit; he's a perfectionist.

`If we'd done a better job at the plate, we would have taken a little pressure off Dallas.'

Buck was hearing it all, and accepting none of it. Asked his evaluation of his performance, he said, `it wasn't too bad. It wasn't what I was capable of doing.'

True for the Beavers, too. But all's well that ends that well.

St. John's 5, Virginia 3

Closer Craig Hansen, starting for the first time in two years, allowed three runs on eight hits over seven innings as the Red Storm defeated the Cavaliers.

The junior right-hander, considered one of the top draft prospects, had a school- and conference-record 14 saves in the regular season.

Anthony Sullivan, who was 7-3 this season as a starter, got his second save.

P.J. Antoniato's two-run single in the sixth inning off Sean Doolittle broke a 3-3 tie for St. John's.

NCAA BASEBALL

REGIONALS

At Corvallis

Double Elimination

FRIDAY'S RESULTS

St. John's 5, Virginia 3

Oregon State 4, Ohio State 3

TODAY'S GAMES

Game 3 - Ohio State (39-19) vs. Virginia (41-19), 1 p.m. (loser eliminated)

Game 4 - Oregon State (42-9) vs. St. John's (40-16), 6:05 p.m.

SUNDAY'S GAMES

Game 5 - Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser, 1 p.m. (loser eliminated)

Game 6 - Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 6 p.m.

MONDAY'S GAME

Game 4 winner vs. Game 6 winner, 2 p.m., if necessary

OREGON STATE VS. ST. JOHN'S

6:05 p.m. today in Goss Stadium at Coleman Field.

CAPTION(S):

Kevin Gunderson kept Ohio State at bay with a near-perfect 1 2/3 innings of relief in Oregon State's victory Friday night. Greg Wahl-Stephens / The Associated Press Oregon State's Shea McFeely (29) is mobbed at the plate after his game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the Beavers a 4-3 NCAA Regional victory over Ohio State on Friday night.