A year ago, Oregon State’s season came to a disappointing end in the NCAA Baseball Super Regionals in Lexington, Kentucky.

And just a few days later, Canon Reeder got to work.

The former Summit High baseball star elected not to play on a team during the summer, which many college players do. Instead he spent the summer in Seattle, basically lived in the gym, gained muscle and worked on his swing.

“I just wanted to hit the ball harder,” Reeder said.

The time away from the baseball diamond and work behind closed doors paid off. Reeder played in just 52 games, starting 23, and had fewer than 100 at bats over his first two seasons in Corvallis. This spring, the junior has turned into a full-time starter in the outfield, hitting over .300. He has been a reliable defender in center field and is one of the reasons Oregon State is one of the final 16 teams remaining in the postseason.

On Friday, the No. 8 Beavers will host No. 9 Florida State at Goss Stadium in Corvallis in a best-of-three series in the NCAA Super Regionals (3 p.m., ESPN2). The winner of the series advances to the eight-team College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. Three-time national champion Oregon State (2006, 2007, 2018) is looking to make its eighth trip to Omaha.

Despite being the top seed in the Corvallis Regional this past weekend, the Beavers dropped their first game to St. Mary’s (6-4), before rallying off four straight elimination games over TCU (7-2), St. Mary’s (20-3), and twice over USC (14-1 and 9-0) to keep their season alive.

“I think the entirety of Beaver Nation is proud,” Beavers coach Mitch Canham told reporters at his media availability Wednesday afternoon. “Even people that haven’t watched the Beavs play and tuned into those games were extremely impressed by their attitude, their togetherness, the fun that they had, their attention to detail and doing the little things throughout the weekend in the face of adversity. I’m extremely proud”

“That’s what makes us Beavers,” Reeder added. “You gotta grit it out and fight for each win we can get.”

Reeder’s path into the every-day lineup began just days after last season ended when he began training at Driveline Baseball, a data-driven baseball development organization in Seattle. It was the first time in years that Reeder did not play for a team during the summer.

He wanted to find personalized mechanics to improve his swing to help hit the ball harder and get the proper backspin on the ball to make it fly through the air better. And he wanted to get stronger. When last season ended, the 6-feet-tall Reeder said he was 175 pounds. He ended the summer weighing close to 190, gaining 15 pounds of mostly muscle.

“I was there every single day except for Sundays when they were closed and I wasn’t allowed in the gym,” Reeder said. “It was a long summer of making myself better and a long fall getting ready for the spring.”

When he returned to Corvallis for fall ball, he noticed an immediate difference in the batter’s box.

It has been a breakout year for Reeder, who did not start the season in the every-day lineup, but eventually carved out a role there. He’s batting .302 on the season, has driven in 32 runs and has hit seven home runs (including a two-home run game against Long Beach State on May 16).

“I never doubted for a second that I was capable of doing what I am doing right now,” Reeder said. “It has been a heck of a year and we are just getting started.”

And it hasn’t only been a productive year for Reeder, but a gratifying one as well.

When the Pac-12 Conference disbanded, leaving Oregon State (along with Washington State) out of one of the four major college conferences, moving on to other programs through the transfer portal became a regular occurrence for OSU athletes.

But Reeder never heard the siren songs of the transfer portal.

Oregon State saw something in Reeder when he was still an underclassmen at Summit, and Reeder verbally committed to the program near the end of his sophomore year of high school.

“They always saw something in me and for me,” Reeder said. “It was putting my foot down and saying, whatever I want, I have to earn it. I’m going to earn my way, hopefully I am in a program where they love me, they believe in me and the coaches support me. There is no place that I would rather be than here in Corvallis.”