NCAA BASEBALL TOURNAMENT Buckeyes to open super regional play Saturday

Ohio State will host Southwest Missouri State in a best-of-three series.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- In the middle of May, it didn't seem likely Ohio State's baseball team still would be playing in June.
Ace pitcher Scott Lewis had torn a ligament in his elbow on May 16 in a game Ohio State lost 9-2 to Big Ten Conference champion Minnesota.
To make matters worse, the Buckeyes lost three of four to Minnesota that weekend, losing their chance to be the host team for the Big Ten tournament.
They weren't hitting, they weren't pitching and they weren't very good. Something had to change, because it appeared as though the Buckeyes could make the NCAA tourney field only by traveling to Minnesota for the conference tournament, winning four games and becoming Big Ten champions.
They had an outside shot at an at-large bid if they didn't win the Big Ten title, but that likelihood was slim because of their disappointing play against Minnesota.
"We decided 'We're going to stop worrying about things and just start playing for fun and playing for ourselves,' " second baseman Drew Anderson said.
Good decision.
Buckeyes on hot streak
Since the debacle against Minnesota, the Buckeyes (44-19) are 7-1 and have rolled into the NCAA super regionals. They will be at home against Southwest Missouri State in a best-of-three series starting Saturday.
In their last five games, the Buckeyes defeated Minnesota 10-8 and 17-10 in the last two games of the Big Ten tournament, beat Clemson 10-8 in the first game of the NCAA regional and smacked around Auburn, the No. 4 seed in the nation, 6-2 and 9-7 on the Tigers' home field to win the regional.
Two more victories will put the Buckeyes in the College World Series for the first time since 1967.
"It's awesome," junior pitcher Josh Newman said. "Words can't describe it.
"This season's been crazy with all the injuries and all the stuff that's happened," he said.
The Buckeyes have made a habit of giving the other team a lead early and catching fire late.
"This team is coming into its own right now," Ohio State coach Bob Todd said. "When people are backed against the wall, it's interesting to see how they respond."
The Buckeyes have made a complete switch in styles since the start of the season.
Earlier in the year, they would get a good pitching performance and score just enough to win most of the time. They didn't need much hitting because they had Greg Prenger, who threw a perfect game this season, and Lewis, who had back-to-back games of 20 and 16 strikeouts.
Now the Buckeyes are pounding their opponents into submission.
Hitting the long ball
In the eight games since the start of the Big Ten tournament, the Buckeyes have outscored their opponents 73-45 and hit 18 home runs.
"I can't even explain it," cleanup hitter Steve Caravati said. "That's basically what we've been doing, living off the longball."
Christian Snavely, who leads the team in home runs with 16, has played well, but other players have been providing the thunder recently.
Anderson hit four home runs in the first two games of the NCAA tournament and was unanimously selected as Most Outstanding Player in the Auburn regional.
"Since we lost Scotty, our hitters haven't felt like we'd get that automatic win," Caravati said. "We knew that we had to do that [hit better] because we couldn't count on Christian to hit a home run every time or Scott to get a win every time."
Todd said the team has responded well to adversity.
"This has been a challenge psychologically with this team," Todd said. "The one thing that we made sure we didn't do when we went to the Big Ten was put pressure on our team and tell them we had to win the Big Ten or we wouldn't get in."