The Pac-10 had another good day Sunday in the NCAA Baseball regionals. In addition to Oregon St.'s advancing to the Super-regionals with their 6-4 win over Georgia, Arizona St. also claimed their regional in a three game sweep, capped by a 13-4 rout of Arkansas. The Sun Devils now are waiting to see if they are headed to Austin, or hosting a Super-regional, if Kent St. can upset Texas tonight.
And Stanford completed an upset sweep of the Fullerton regional with a 14-2 rout of Illinois, who made a surprising appearance in the Sunday evening game, but was out of gas after their earlier 7-5 win that eliminated Fullerton St. The Cardinal are headed to Chapel Hill for a weekend Super-regional series with North Carolina.
Both California and Arizona were up against it, facing afternoon elimination games, but the Golden Bears and Wildcats flexed some serious muscle in posting 2 wins apiece on Sunday to earn themselves shots at Super-regionals in decisive games tonight.
Cal knocked Rice out of their own Houston region with a strong 6-3 win, and then bounced back to square their series with Baylor, who had sent Cal into the losers' bracket on Friday, with a dominating 8-0 win. The Bears and the other Bears will settle things tonight. And it's unfortunate that Cal doesn't have the facilities to be able to host a regional, because they could have been in line to host a Super-regional despite being a three seed. Because the winner of the Bear brawl will meet the winner of the Ft. Worth Regional, which will be Dallas Baptist or Oral Roberts, the three and four seeds.
This after Oral Roberts knocked TCU out of the tournament by an 8-4 score, then turned around and beat Dallas Baptist 7-2. The two will meet again today, with the winner getting to fight one of the bunches of Bears.
Arizona also had a big day, as the Wildcats knocked Seton Hall out with a 6-0 win, and then upset the host Texas A&M Aggies by a 7-4 score in College Station. The 'Cats and Aggies square off again today to see who gets to go sweat it out in Tallahassee, against Florida St.
The only Pac-10 team that has been eliminated so far is UCLA, who couldn't survive the regional they hosted. The Bruins beat San Francisco 4-1 to stay alive, but then fell 4-3 to UC-Irvine, when the Anteaters, who had beaten UCLA late in the regular season as well, scored twice in the bottom of the ninth inning to earn the trip to Charlottesville to face top ranked Virginia.
The Pac-10 is now 17-4 in the post-season.
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com