Oregon State faces North Carolina in College World Series elimination game

OMAHA. Neb. — Backs to the wall, the Oregon State Beavers showed how dangerous they can be on Monday in an elimination game against Washington.

They want to keep it going at 4 p.m. PDT Wednesday against North Carolina (43-19) at TD Ameritrade Park (TV on ESPN). The loser goes home.

This is a rematch of Saturday’s College World Series opener in which the Beavers (50-11-1) looked like they had slept through the alarm clock.

They committed three errors, had a passed ball, made baserunning blunders and several uncharacteristic mental mistakes in an 8-6 loss to the Tar Heels.

“It’s just baseball,” said third baseman Michael Gretler, who had one of the errors. “Some of those balls were hit well. Obviously, those are plays we make nine times out of 10. This just happened to be that one time out of 10. We know we have to put it behind us, and we have.”

It didn’t happen immediately. The Beavers dug a 3-0 hole for themselves Wednesday against Washington and were trailing 5-4 before a weather system containing heavy rain and lightning halted the action in the sixth inning for four and a half hours.

When play resumed, OSU battered UW pitching 10-0 the rest of the way to win 14-5. Much of the damage was done with two outs and much of it by an unlikely cast of characters.

The Beavers are playing with three first-rounders from the MLB draft. But the program’s marquee guys didn’t do the heavy lifting on Monday.

No. 7 hitter Kyle Nobach went 2 for 4 and keyed OSU’s four-run seventh with a three-run homer. Tyler Malone, who didn’t start, went 2 for 2 with a homer and three runs batted in.