COLLEGE WORLD SERIES NOTEBOOK:Anteaters piling up experience

OMAHA, Neb. — If dogpiling is an acquired skill, then the UC Irvine baseball team should be getting the hang of it after the last two weeks.

The No. 4-ranked Anteaters (45-15-1), who make their College World Series debut today at 11 a.m. against No. 3-ranked Arizona State (48-13) at Rosenblatt Stadium, would love to show what they’ve learned with one more dogpile, following a national title victory either June 25 of 26.

They first executed the somewhat dangerous formation in Round Rock, Texas, after winning the NCAA Regional with a 9-6 triumph over host Texas.

And while everyone escaped injury, Wes Etheridge, who became the epicenter of the mass of humanity by posting his first save of the season, said he was lucky to escape in tact.

“I got crushed,” said Etheridge, a 6-foot-1, 175-pound junior who considers himself “probably the heaviest guy with no muscle, ever on this planet. I think my shoulders actually touched.”

Etheridge, however, said that was better than his previous dogpile experience, after his Marina High team won the CIF Southern Section championship in 2003.

The pile was at home plate,” he said. “I jumped and missed the whole thing. I went over everyone and landed on my head.”

The dogpile drill was repeated seven times on June 8, when seven Anteaters were chosen on the second day of the Major League First-Year Player Draft.

“As soon as a guy’s name was called, we ran to his room and dogpiled on him,” UCI sophomore pitcher Scott Gorgen said. “Last year’s draft happened after our season was over, so guys experienced it on their own. This year was really fun, because we got to experience it as a team.”

Gorgen’s experience two days later in the dogpile that followed a dramatic 3-2 clinching victory at Wichita State, was somewhat less fun.

“I dived into the pile and I must have hit somebody’s elbow or knee, because I came out with a bloody nose,” Gorgen said. “But I wasn’t going to let that ruin my celebration. I just stared wiping it off on my jacket.”

GORGEN NAMED ALL-AMERICAN

Gorgen, who is the starting pitcher today against ASU, had a much better experience Friday, when it was announced that he had been named third-team All-American by Baseball America and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Assn.

Gorgen, 12-2 with a 2.68 earned-run average, has allowed just one run in his last 37 innings and has completed each of his last four starts, three of which were shutouts.

He has yielded just 108 hits in 127 2/3 innings and he has 106 strikeouts.

Gorgen was on the Baseball America Freshman All-Amercan team in 2006, when he was also named Big West Conference Freshman Pitcher of the Year.

Gorgen was a first-team all-conference honoree this season.

He has victories in head-to-head matchups this season with All-Americans James Simmons (UC Riverside), Adrian Alaniz (Texas) and Wes Roemer (Cal State Fullerton).

FINAL(S) JEOPARDY

The Anteaters’ stay in Wichita is not all fun and games, as players have been taking finals to wrap up the spring quarter at their hotel.

Bobby Smitheran, an assistant athletic director for student support, has been administering the finals.

Coaches would obviously prefer to have school out of the way as they try to make the stretch run toward a national title.

Wayne Graham, the veteran coach at No. 1-ranked Rice, which rallied from a 10-4 deficit to defeat Louisville, 15-10, to open the CWS Friday, mentioned that completing its academic year was a turning point for the Owls.

“We have two kinds of survival at Rice,” Graham said. “First there, is academic survival and then there is baseball survival. After our finals were done, May 31, we started playing our best ball.”

CAROLINA COMES BACK

North Carolina, runner-up in the 2006 CWS to Oregon State, opened its 2007 tournament with an 8-5 come-from-behind win over Mississippi State Friday night.

Mississippi State led, 4-0, through three innings.

ALMA MATER MATTERS

Today’s UC Irvine matchup against the Sun Devils creates no mixed emotions for UC Irvine women’s basketball coach Molly Tuter, who played collegiately at Arizona State.

“I want the Anteaters to crush them,” Tuter said recently.

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at [email protected].