Beavers return home college baseball champs

PORTLAND — A scrappy group of underdogs mostly from the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon State Beavers triumphantly returned home Tuesday after winning the College World Series.

The team was feted first in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square, a day after beating North Carolina 3-2 in the deciding game of the three-game championship series in Omaha, Neb.

Another celebration was held later on the Oregon State campus.

"Man, this is surreal," shortstop Darwin Barney said as he looked across thousands of orange-clad fans in Portland. "We really did this for everybody in the Northwest. We've been looked past, we've been the underdogs for two years. But the East Coast has nothing on us."

Pitcher Kevin Gunderson, who led the nation with 20 saves, was wide-eyed at the thunderous shouts of "O-S-U! O-S-U!"

A fire truck had hoisted a Beavers flag on its ladder and hung it out over the crowd. Faces peered from office windows and filled stairwells in the surrounding buildings.

"We didn't expect it to be this big, but it goes to show you there are Beavers Believers everywhere," Gunderson said.

It is the school's second national championship in any sport. The men's cross-country team won a title in 1961.

Oregon State becomes the first team to win six elimination games at the College World Series and the first to lose twice and still win a national title.

The Beavers finished 50-16, a school-best record. They repeated as Pac-10 champions before making their second straight trip to Omaha.

Splashed across a commemorative edition of The Oregonian was the headline: "THE BEST."

Beaver Fever stretched to the nation's capitol where Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith recognized Oregon State's achievement on the Senate floor.

"While at the College World Series in Omaha, they played eight games. In six of those games they knew that if they lost then went home. They kept winning against all odds and they come home now to Corvallis, Oregon, the champions of their great sport," Smith said.

Oregon State also shattered the perception that a team from the Pacific Northwest could never hang with traditional college-baseball powerhouses from warm-weather schools.

Roughly 60 percent of the team's roster is from Oregon. There are also five players from Washington (Shea McFeely, Federal Way High School; Mitch Canham, Lake Stevens; Lonnie Lechelt, Southridge of Kennewick; Scott Santschi, Skyview of Vancouver; and Casey Priseman, Woodinville).