You may or may not know this. I am an Oregon State Beaver. Yes I am. And today, my Oregon State Beavers baseball team have won their second consecutive national championship. Last year caught us all by surprise, but this year, in many ways, even more so. The Beavers did not have the remarkable follow-up regular season that many were expecting. In fact, they finished with a losing record in Pac-10 play and were the last team selected to participate in the post-season field of 64 participants. They lost their first tournament game to Virginia, and then, they never lost again. Ten consecutive victories over college baseball's cream-of-the-crop, including Virginia, Rutgers, Michigan, Cal State Fullerton, Arizona State, UC Irvine and finally, North Carolina. By the end, they were like a steamroller. They were barely challenged in their last four games leading to the title. Today's 9-3 win over UNC was a dominant display of confidence and skill, just like yesterday's 11-4 pounding. What a joy to watch the mighty North Carolina Tar Heels, standing on the top step of their dugout, watching the Beavers build a jubilant dogpile... just as they did one year ago.
The great thing is that this is a team of Oregon kids, local kids that played their little league and high school ball right here. Also, most of the team that won the title last year had graduated or moved on to pro ball, so with a small handful of returnees (only two starting fielders) they managed to climb to the very top again. I won't forget these guys... Mitch Canham, Darwin Barney, Joe Patterson, Mike Stutz, Joey Wong, Mike Lissman, Jorge Reyes, Daniel Turpen, Eddie Kunz and most importantly, Coach Pat Casey. I'm a little nervous that we might lose Coach Casey to the major leagues after this coaching performance. I think the Mariners could use him.I'll be wearing my Orange and Black for the next few days and can't wait to get my own championship t-shirt. So anybody out there think that a three-peat is only wishful thinking? I didn't think so.
2 comments:
Woa! I missed this news while I was out of town.
Congratulations to your team, Ideawave! We'll have to keep an eye out for any of these players who might surface in the majors in a couple years.
And you're right about the M's needing a new manager, though it looks as if they are sticking with McLaren.
In other sports news, I heard that the Linfield Women's Softball team did well this year too. Looks like Oregon is becoming a real diamond mine.
I got my championship tee and it feels great to wear! I sported orange and black a few days later to play golf with my buddies and they did notice for sure. It felt great to show off in "Husky Land".
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