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It really is a shame that the June Madness of the CWS doesn't get more press. It really is an amazing tournament format, and REALLY well suited for baseball. (Why does the NCAA have such amazing postseasons in everything EXCEPT football????)
Oregon and Oregon St have both had good seasons and are nationally ranked in the top 10 respectively depending on the polls you're using.
Just a handful of games remaining until the regionals begin!
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Oregon and Oregon State are the two best teams in the country. And keep your eye on Fullerton. Thomas Eshelman might be the best pitcher in Div. 1 not named Mark Appel.
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I'm pretty impressed with Oregon. Made it to the Super Regionals last year, and lost by 1 run in the 3rd game (just short of making the CWS).
Strange since that was the fourth year they've been back in baseball. It was not on their offered athletics again until 2009.
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A little history: When the conference was the Pac-8, it was spilt in half with the four California schools and the four Pacific Northwest schools. When the two Arizona schools joined to make it the Pac-10, they comprised what was known as the "Six Pac" and they didn't even bother playing the two Washington schools and OSU regularly. I think Oregon demoted baseball to a club sport in either the late '70s or early '80s, and (believe it or not) Wazoo was mostly the dominant force in the Pac-10 North division.
In the late '90s, the North teams started putting more emphasis on baseball and they pushed for a facocta playoff between the division champions that the South didn't really take seriously because it was held right before the regionals. I think the conference became whole (well, nine teams) in 1998 and OSU of course won back-to-back championships in 2006 (Grrr ....) and 2007.
Oregon revived baseball in 2009 and as you point out nearly made it to Omaha last year.
Utah became the 11th team in the conference when it joined last year. I think baseball is still a club sport in Colorado.