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Thursday - June 22, 2006

CWS - Day 7

Oregon State v. Rice. I have to say I was disappointed to see that Coach Graham had Tyler Henley in at the start of the game. After the way he shoved Joe Patterson to the ground in last night's game, I really though he should've been out of today's game. At the very least, he shouldn't have started. Bad karma for Rice? Ah well.

Eddie Degerman got the start for Rice and Jonah Nickerson got the call for Oregon State. OSU scored the first run of the game in the 2nd: Bill Rowe started the inning off with a double down the rf line, moved to 3b on a wild pitch a couple of batters later, and then scored on a sac fly to lf. In the 5th, Kunda led off with a single past the 3b bag...his second hit of the CWS! Shea McFeely then doubled down the lf line. On the play, Kunda just beat the throw from lf. Wow. Scott Santschi struck out and then Darwin Barney walked to load the bases. John Wallace came up to bat with 1 out. He hit a hard ground ball up the middle that hit Degerman's left foot and ricocheted off toward the 2b/3b hole. The third baseman fielded the ball nicely and threw to 1b for the 2nd out. Kunda scored on the play. OSU up 2-0. Rice sent Bryce Cox in to pitch and he struck out Cole Gillespie to end the threat. Rice didn't manage their first real threat of the game until the 7th when Joe Savery doubled to the rf line with one out. He moved to 3b when Aaron Luna flew out to rf (Savery tagged up on the play to advance). He was stranded there when Danny Lehmann flew out to lf.

During the top of the 8th inning, while Oregon State was batting, the trainer spent quite a bit of time working on Nickerson's right thumb. He appeared to have torn the nail off at the quick. It looked painful. Nickerson stayed in the game, though, and got the first batter he faced to ground out to 3b on a bunt attempt. He then struck out the next batter and was finally taken out in favor of closer Kevin Gunderson. Nickerson went 7.2 innings, gave up 2 hits, walked 3, and struck out 9. He threw 109 pitches. Wow.

Gunderson did his job, did not allow a base runner, and got his 19th save of the year to send Rice home. Oregon State won 2-0. Rice failed to score in the last 23 innings they played at Omaha...a CWS record. Amazing. The two teams combined for only 5 hits. What a nicely pitched game. Of course, the pitchers did have some help behind the plate as the umpire kept giving them pitches that looked awfully wide and low. He did not impress me. Not to mention the fact that the entire crew missed the foul ball off Savery's foot early in the game. That was the second time I saw that in the CWS. Not pretty.

Oregon State now faces North Carolina in the best-of-3 championship series. Neither team was a National Seed when the tournament field was set. They don't say it outright but North Carolina's Regional was paired with the Alabama Regional (#4) and Oregon State's was paired with ours (#3). So, the championship boils down to the #13 seed facing the #14 seed. I imagine they said it at some point but I never heard it: I wonder how many times the Championship game (or series, since the best-of-3 thing was instituted) has not included a top 8 seed?

I don't have a lot invested in the championship. But, I'll probably end up rooting for the Beavers. I like what I've seen of the North Carolina coach and team, though, so I won't be disappointed to see them win it. Baby blue uniforms, notwithstanding.

Posted by Joanna at 11:35 PM