Oregon State baseball can’t complete comeback this time as Beavers’ season ends at MCWS

Oregon State

rallied for three runs in the ninth inning to tie the game, but Louisville answered with a run of its own in the bottom of the inning

to win 7-6

Tuesday at the Men’s College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Beavers’ magical postseason run — and their season — is over after a rollercoaster of action and emotion.

For a team that had staved off elimination five times in this NCAA baseball tournament, the eighth-seeded Beavers seemingly had the Cardinals right where they wanted them late in the game.

Louisville led the elimination game by three runs after eight innings, once again leaving the Beavers in desperation mode: Score some runs, or it’s season over.

Oregon State’s

Aiva Arquette

wasted no time, sending the first pitch he saw into the left-center field seats for a leadoff homer in the ninth.

Gavin Turley

followed with a single.

Wilson Weber

walked.

AJ Singer

singled to right. Suddenly, the Beavers had the bases loaded with no outs. Then Louisville shortstop Alex Alicea couldn’t come up with a grounder by

Tyce Peterson

, and Turley and Weber came around to score.

Oregon State had tied it at 6-6.

Louisville reliever Tucker Biven steadied things after that, though, getting two strikeouts and a foul out to end the inning.

Oregon State’s

Kellan Oakes

just missed on a full-count pitch to Alicea to start the bottom half of the ninth, and the Cardinals had a runner on first. Then a catcher’s interference call and a fielding error by Oakes on a bunt loaded the bases with no outs.

The Beavers brought in freshman reliever

Zach Edwards

, who struck out Jake Munroe looking. But Louisville’s Eddie King Jr. then drove the ball to center, deep enough for Alicea to tag up and score, and the game was over.

Oregon State left behind plenty of what-ifs as it exited Omaha. The Beavers went 1 for 15 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday, after going a combined 1 for 12 in those situations in their first two MCWS games. Oregon State stranded multiple runners in five different innings and left 12 on base for the game.

The Beavers rallied after falling behind 3-0 early. Jacob Krieg crushed a two-run homer to left in the fourth that scored Peterson and narrowed the Louisville lead to 3-2. Two innings later, Singer scored on

Canon Reeder

’s fielder’s choice to again bring the Beavers within a run, at 4-3.

But the Cardinals scratched out runs in the sixth and seventh to go back up by three.

Reeder was hit by a pitch in the eighth to get on base with two outs, but then

Trent Caraway

struck out swinging to end the inning.

Oregon State showed off some stellar defense against the Cardinals. In the second inning, Arquette made a nice snag and spinning throw to first, followed by Reeder’s diving grab in center field. Caraway stopped a sharply hit grounder near third base and fired to first in time in the fourth.

The Beavers showed mettle — as they had all postseason — in their comeback bid. But

after winning 4-3

in walk-off fashion to open the MCWS on Friday against the Cardinals, the Beavers couldn’t quite match the feat on Tuesday.

—

Joel Odom


writes about trending topics in news, life and culture, and sports. Reach him at 503-221-8594,


jodom@oregonian.com


or


@jkodom on Blue Sky


.

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