Last season the Owls won their first two games of the College World Series before dropping their next two in the semifinals and finding themselves on a plane back to Houston sooner than they thought they would.

The Owls are three-quarters of the way to completing that story again.

Last season the Owls won their first two games and looked good enough to make it to the championship series. Then they ran into eventual national champion Oregon State and that was the ballgame.

Leading up to this CWS and even following their first two wins, the Owls talked about how mindful they were of last year's collapse in which the Owls were unable to score in their two games against OSU.

They were backing up their point, too. The Owls scored 29 runs in their first two games - including a 14-4 pounding of the Tar Heels on Sunday - and looked as though they might run the table in capturing the university's second ever national championship.

Rice was not on this day, as the offense didn't score its only run until the seventh inning. Starter Ryan Berry uncharacteristically hit four batters and the usually reliable gloves of shortstop Brian Friday and second baseman Aaron Luna coughed up two errors.

"It was one of those days where we got outplayed, but we'll show up (today)," Owls coach Wayne Graham said. "It's not an easy game. We have imperfect players and an imperfect head coach, too."

The Owls and Tar Heels will meet for the third time in Omaha today. While it looked as though the Owls were a sure bet to be playing this weekend, a loss to North Carolina Thursday and the Owls season will be over.

Rice has lost three times since March 27. It's hard to see the Owls losing twice in a row, especially against the same team, but the Tar Heels probably match-up with the Owls better than any opponent they've faced this season.
Rice was ranked as the No. 2 team in the country and North Carolina was right behind them at No. 3 according the final USA Today/ESPN Top 25 coaches' poll. The Owls calling card has been their pitching, with a 2.83 earned run average that's good enough for fourth in the country. The Tar Heels are right there as well, ranked sixth with an ERA of 3.30.

"They're the No. 3 team in the nation, so I don't think beating us twice in a row would be an upset by any means," junior first baseman Joe Savery said. The Lamar product finished the game 1-for-4, and hit into two double plays. "At this point in time you can't look at them as underdogs."

Savery added that as much as his team talks about having experience from last year, the Tar Heels have that and more. North Carolina got farther than the Owls did, losing in the championship series to the Beavers.

It's not as if the Owls haven't faced adversity this year. The preseason No. 1-ranked team struggled out of the gate at 11-7, but that seems more like a faded dream now. Also, in the CWS last year they weren't as confident as they are now.

"We've been in this kind of situation before," Friday said. "Last year we were tense, I know that. We just have one game and we're going to let it all hang out."

News and notes:
The Owls will play the Tar Heels at 1 p.m. to decide who goes to the championship series...Graham said he will start junior Matt Langwell on Thursday, who is 8-1 with a team-best 2.11 ERA. His last outing was in relief on Friday against Louisville, going one and two-thirds innings with four earned runs and five hits.