Since probably the first game of the season, Oregon State baseball head coach Mitch Canham has leaned into one of organized sports’ longest standing cliches.

“We haven’t played our best baseball yet,” the seventh-year head coach and his roster of ballplayers have said dozens and dozens of times.

With their backs to the wall and facing elimination from their own regional for three-straight games, it’s hard to imagine the Beavers can play much better. Playing a double-header against fourth-seeded Saint Mary’s and third-seed USC on Sunday, June 1, the top-seeded Beavers gave their home crowd a tour de force on day three of the Corvallis regional.

The Gaels were the first victim, falling 20-3 to Oregon State in the 3 p.m. game.

The Beavers rolled with their usual Sunday starter in left-handed sophomore Ethan Kleinschmit (8-3), who earned the win behind 7.2 innings of work and 114-total pitches. Both totals were career-highs, punching out six Gaels and surrendering two runs on five hits.

“He’s got a rubber arm, he’d throw as long as it took to get the job done,” Canham said of Kleinschmit. “(He) filled up the strike zone well, no doubt about it… We weren’t striking out a lot of guys, (but) that’s perfectly fine. It allowed him to go deep in the game and, for that game at that moment, was exactly what we needed to happen.”

Kleinschmit handed the game off to senior Joey Mundt out of the bullpen for the final four outs, needing just 12 pitches to do so despite facing six batters and letting up a run.

On less than an hour’s break, the Beavers picked up right where they left off for a 14-1 win over the Trojans.

Against USC, it was sophomore right-hander Wyatt Queen toeing the slab out of the gate. Queen didn’t qualify for a decision with 4.1 innings of work; and despite letting up eight of USC’s 12 hits in game two, the sophomore allowed just a single run while striking out five total.

“Queen, his biggest thing (is) he’s always had the ability to throw strikes,” Canham said of the right-hander. “And now he’s throwing them like a mad man with conviction. Slider has continued to get better and better, changeup is (working) well, (he’s) throwing a cutter, throwing a heater in any and every spot he wants.”

Queen passed the ball of to junior right-hander Kellan Oakes, who made his second appearance of the weekend with a 1.2-inning stint, punching out four and allowing one hit and one walk. Two of those strikeouts by Oakes came in a bases-loaded, one-out jam that caused Queen to be lifted from the game, with the junior from Canby sending both down swinging, one looking and the other swinging.

Right-handed freshman Zach Kmatz recorded his first career save, letting up three hits and no runs while setting career-highs in innings pitched (three) and strikeouts (seven).

“To be a true freshman and go out there throwing 93-94 mph sinkers and changeups and sliders, a lot of times (the struggle is) going out there for that second inning,” Canham said. “(Kmatz) showed a ton of maturity to go back out there, get through that second inning and plug away and finish the game. Which puts us in a really good spot with our bullpen tomorrow.”

Offensively, it would be easier to list the bats who didn’t perform than those who did.

Oregon State ran the same starting nine out for each matchup, racking up 41-total hits and scoring 34 runs over the pair of games. Not one of those nine (catcher Wilson Weber, first baseman Tyce Peterson, second baseman AJ Singer, third baseman Trent Caraway, shortstop Aiva Arquette, left fielder Gavin Turley, centerfielder Canon Reeder, right fielder Easton Talt and designated-hitter Dallas Macias) ended the day without scoring a run or reaching base multiple times.

Turley broke Oregon State’s (179, previously held by Michael Conforto) program record for career-RBI with 180th in the sixth inning of the win over Saint Mary’s, driving in Talt with a single.

But nobody had quite the day, or weekend, that Caraway had. For the first time since the first months of his freshman season as a Beaver, the sophomore is fully healthy and swinging an unfathomably-hot bat.

In 13 at-bats across four games, Caraway has logged eight hits, nine RBI, a double and four home runs, while working seven walks. A small sample-size, sure, but the gaudy numbers from the third baseman have led to a .615/.750/1.615 slash line and a 2.365 OPS. Getting the highly-touted recruit up to speed has been a massive lift for Canham and his squad, with Caraway looking like a shoe-in for the Corvallis Regional’s MVP.

“(Caraway’s) worth ethic and confidence, it’s so loud,” Canham said. “It screams at me, ‘Give me more at-bats!’ And you can just see it coming… I’m just proud of — we’re all proud of — what he’s done. He’s contintued to get under weight and continue to push until he lifts it. And right now, he’s (lifting) it.”

The pair of wins by Canham’s Oregon State squad force a game seven against USC, with first-pitch scheduled for 3 p.m. on Monday, June 2 at Goss Stadium.

The matchup will be broadcast on ESPNU, with a trip to a super regional (Oregon State would host Florida State with a win, USC would go to Tallahassee with one) on the line. Neither side has announced a starting pitcher for game seven.