Golden Bears stand between Beavers and softball Series.

Byline: The Register-Guard

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

CORVALLIS - Two wins away from earning its first appearance ever in the softball College World Series, Oregon State finds a familiar foe in California as the final obstacle as the two Pac-10 teams begin a best-of-three series today at 4 p.m. at the OSU Softball Complex.

The teams play again Saturday at 1 p.m., and a third game, if necessary, would follow immediately.

This is the only one of the eight NCAA Super Regionals that has a matchup of two teams ranked in the top 15 nationally. The Beavers (41-13) are ranked seventh while California (47-12) is 12th.

OSU hosted and won its regional last weekend with a victory over Nevada and two wins over Baylor. California advanced to this weekend by taking three wins at a regional hosted by the University of Iowa.

During the regular season, the teams met three times with California posting a pair of 2-0 triumphs in Berkeley and the Beavers taking a 4-2 victory in Corvallis.

OSU carries a .289 team batting average into the series, with eight hitters at .300 or better, but goes up against the Pac-10 pitcher of the year in California senior Kristina Thorson.

Lane falls in NWAACC 

baseball tourney opener

LONGVIEW, Wash. - Tyler Rice pitched a three-hitter, and Columbia Basin College took advantage of five Lane errors to hand the Titans a 10-0 loss in the first round of the NWAACC baseball championships Thursday.

Eight of Columbia Basin's runs were unearned, including five that came after a two-out error in the fifth inning.

UO doubles team

exits national tourney

STANFORD, Calif. - Oregon's doubles team of Dominika Dieskova and Ceci Olivos was knocked out of the NCAA women's tennis tournament with a 7-6 (3), 6-3 first-round loss to Helena Besovich and Ana Cetnik of Texas Christian on Thursday.

"We had our chances," Oregon coach Nils Schyllander said. "The girls had a set point in the first set and just got unlucky and couldn't get the set. I'm proud of how they played, but they could have just used a few more points."

Oregon State selects

Hall of Fame inductees

Sam Bell, the coach of Oregon State's lone national championship team when his cross country runners won the NCAA title in 1961, headlines the latest group of inductees into the OSU athletic hall of fame.

Bell coached at Oregon State from 1959 through 1965. In track and field, his teams twice finished in the top 10 at the NCAA championships, and he coached five individual national champions.

One of those individual NCAA winners for Bell is among the four athletes in the group that will be inducted in a ceremony on Sept. 22.

Dale Story, running barefoot in 30-degree weather, finished first ahead of six future Olympians at the 1961 NCAA cross country meet to lead the Beavers to that team championship.

The other athletes being inducted are heavyweight wrestler Jim Baumgardner, an NCAA runner-up in 1984 after setting the OSU record for wins with 52 in 1983; softball catcher Erin Capps, OSU's first all-American in the sport in 1983; and baseball outfielder Larry Petersen, an all-American in 1960 when he batted .419 and the team most valuable player as a senior in 1962.

Also being inducted is the 1980-81 men's basketball team, which won its first 26 games and was ranked No. 1 in the nation for eight weeks before losing its final two games.

Former Duck

joins touring team

Matt Short, who completed his eligibility in the past basketball season for Oregon, has been selected for an Athletes in Action team that will tour the Philippines this summer.

The 7-foot Short played in 11 games for Oregon last season. He scored six points and had 16 rebounds.

AIA will send 11 different teams on international trips this summer. The team Short will be on will gather in Dayton, Ohio, on June 18 for training prior to the 14-day trip.

AIA is the sports branch of Campus Crusade for Christ International.