The 2006 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was held from June 2 through June 26, . Sixty-four

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division I

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

teams met after having played their way through a regular season, and for some, a conference tournament, to play in the NCAA tournament. The tournament culminated with 8 teams in the

College World Series The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is an annual baseball tournament held in June in Omaha, Nebraska. The MCWS is the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisi ...

at historic

Rosenblatt Stadium Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium was a baseball stadium in Omaha, Nebraska, the former home to the annual NCAA Division I College World Series and the minor league Omaha Royals, now known as the Omaha Storm Chasers. Rosenblatt Stadium was the largest ...

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

. After winning the regional and super regional rounds of the 2006 NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament, eight teams advanced to Omaha. Clemson, ,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, ,

Oregon State Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...

, , , and

Miami (FL) Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at the ...

all won their super-regionals and made the trip to the 2006 College World Series. Five national seeds advanced to Omaha: Clemson (1), Rice (2), Cal State Fullerton (5), Georgia (7), and Georgia Tech (8). Third-seeded and sixth-seeded both fell in the regionals, while the fourth seed lost in super regional play. The first pitch of the 2006 CWS was Friday, June 16, at 1:00 PM CDT (18:00 UTC). The 2006 tournament was only the second time in CWS history in which 16 games were played (the other being the 2003 College World Series). After losing their tournament opener to

, the

Oregon State Beavers The Oregon State Beavers are the athletic teams that represent Oregon State University, located in Corvallis, Oregon. The Beavers compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I ( Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for c ...

staved off elimination for four straight games to win their bracket and advance to the championship series. The , who had not lost a three-game series all season, were shut out in consecutive games by the Beavers and failed to score in a CWS-record 23 innings. Oregon State advanced to face North Carolina in the final. College World Series 2006 - Finals Game 2 opening

College World Series 2006 - Finals Game 2 opening

The best-of-three championship series featured

and

. Oregon State won the deciding game, 3–2, winning the school's first national title in baseball and its second NCAA championship overall. All games were televised on

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

. Oregon State set a CWS record by winning six elimination games (four in bracket play, two in the championship series) and also became the first team ever to lose twice in Omaha and still win the title. Oregon State is the only team besides Holy Cross in 1952 to win six games in the College World Series. Oregon State played in half (eight of 16) of the games in the tournament. OSU pitcher

Jonah Nickerson Jonah S. Nickerson (born March 9, 1985 in Casper, Wyoming) is a retired American minor league baseball pitcher. Nickerson played for the 2006 College World Series-winning Oregon State Beavers, and was named the Most Outstanding Player. Early li ...

was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Five-time national champion

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...

was left out of the field of 64, the first time since 1988 that the Tigers failed to qualify for a regional. LSU's overall record of 35–24 merited at-large consideration, but it was undone by poor performance in the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

, where the Tigers finished 8th out of 12 teams at 13–17. LSU won national championships in 1991, '93, '96, '97 and 2000 under Hall of Fame coach

Skip Bertman Stanley "Skip" Bertman (born May 23, 1938) is a former college baseball coach and athletic director at Louisiana State University (LSU). He led the LSU Tigers baseball team to five College World Series championships and seven Southeastern Confere ...

, who was the school's athletic director at this time. Ten days after LSU's season ended, Bertman fired his successor, Smoke Laval, and hired Notre Dame coach

Paul Mainieri Paul Mainieri (born August 29, 1957) is a former baseball coach and second baseman. He played college baseball at LSU, Miami-Dade CC and New Orleans before pursuing a professional baseball career. He then served as the head coach of the St. Th ...

Bids

Automatic bids

Conference champions from 30 Division I conferences earned automatic bids to regionals. The remaining 34 spots were awarded to schools as at-large invitees.

Bids by conference

National seeds

''Bold indicates CWS participant.'' # Clemson # # # # # # #

Regionals and super regionals

Bold indicates winner.

Clemson Super Regional

Houston Super Regional

Corvallis Super Regional

Tuscaloosa Super Regional

Fullerton Super Regional

Oxford Super Regional

Athens Super Regional

Atlanta Super Regional

College World Series

Participants

Bracket

Championship series

Saturday 6/24

=Championship Game #1: 6:00 PM

= Note: 77 minute rain delay in top of 6th inning

Sunday 6/25

=Championship Game #2: 6:00 PM

Monday 6/26

=Championship Game #3: 6:00 PM

All-Tournament Team

The following players were members of the All-Tournament Team.

Tournament performance by conference

Notes on tournament field

* Lehigh, UNC Asheville, San Francisco, Prairie View, and Sacred Heart were making their first NCAA tournament appearance.

References

{{2006 NCAA Division I baseball tournament navbox NCAA Division I Baseball Championship Baseball in Austin, Texas Baseball in Houston