CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State’s fast start has been named one of the nation’s top stories in the first half of the 2007 college baseball season by Baseball America magazine. Baseball America’s “Midseason Report” ranked the Beavers No. 5 on its list of the top five stories so far this season.
Wrote Aaron Fitt of Baseball America: “The defending national champions were supposed to be down a little after losing the core of its back-to-back College World Series teams - the pitching trio of Jonah Nickerson, Kevin Gunderson and Dallas Buck, not to mention 2006 Pacific-10 Conference player of the year Cole Gillespie. But the Beavers kept on winning, even after playing their first 17 games on the road against quality opponents. They started the year 23-3 and rose to No. 4 in the nation before being swept at Arizona in their Pac-10 opener. Even after dropping that series, Oregon State has firmly established itself as one of the very best programs in the nation.”
Baseball America also gave its projections for the 64-team field for the NCAA tournament. It listed OSU as the No. 6 national seed, with the Beavers hosting a NCAA Regional for the third straight year; the teams Baseball America had headed for Corvallis were Michigan, Tennessee and Wright State.
