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Oklahoma State cut Clinton McKeever as a walk-on pitching candidate in the fall of 2005. Maybe the Cowboys should have tried him as hitter.

McKeever, now at Wichita State, hit a two-out grand slam off the right-field foul pole in the 10th inning to send Wichita State to a super regional with an 11-7 win over top-seeded Oklahoma State.

"I have never been happier for a player than Clint McKeever," WSU coach Gene Stephenson said. "Phenomenal. It's a storybook ending."

The Shockers await the winner of tonight's game between No. 4 national seed Florida State and Tulane in the Tallahassee Regional. Should Florida State win, the Shockers will travel for the super regional. If third-seeded Tulane wins, WSU is likely to host.

WSU reliever Logan Hoch struck out Donnie Webb to end the game and send WSU to the supers for a second straight season. Twenty years ago, WSU came into Stillwater and won a regional against a favored OSU team to advance to the College World Series.

The step forward the Wingnuts' offense took Sunday paled in comparison to the leap made by center fielder Chris Colton.

Mired in a 1-for-29 slump that saw his batting average drop 44 points, Colton broke out with three singles and three runs scored. Wichita used a three-run fifth inning to beat Sioux City 5-1 at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

"It felt kind of good," Colton said. "I feel like I was pressing a little bit during the last five or six or seven games. I just wanted to come out here today and just relax."

Wichita's hitters seemed to be in a collective relaxed state, perhaps realizing that things couldn't get worse than Saturday night, when the Wingnuts stranded nine runners and failed on several occasions to get a hit with runners in scoring position.

The Wingnuts were on their way to another disappointing showing at the plate, stranding four runners during the first three innings despite taking a 1-0 lead on an RBI single by Blake Gailen in the third.

Buster Posey hit two home runs as Florida State beat Tulane 17-8 Sunday to set up tonight's rematch for the NCAA Tallahassee regional title.

Posey hit a three-run homer during a five-run fifth inning as the Seminoles (51-11) opened up a 10-4 lead. His solo homer in the fourth broke a 4-4 tie. He also hit a pair of home runs -- including a grand slam -- in an earlier game Sunday.

The Seminoles put the game out of reach with a seven-run eighth inning.

Florida State 24, Bucknell 9 -- Buster Posey hit a pair of home runs, including a grand slam in the third inning, to lead Florida State to a rout over Bucknell.

Lincoln Regional

Cary, N.C.

Friday

North Carolina-Wilmington 5, Elon 2

North Carolina 16, Mount St. Mary's, Md. 8

Saturday

Red Sox 9, Orioles 4 -- Manny Ramirez hit his 501st home run, and Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew also connected for Boston.

• After becoming the 24th major leaguer to hit No. 500 Saturday, Ramirez hit No. 501 in his third at-bat, driving a pitch from Brian Burres (4-5) into the right-field seats to put Boston up 6-3 in the fourth inning.

Rays 4, White Sox 3 (10) --Gabe Gross hit a leadoff homer in the 10th inning, giving AL East-leading Tampa Bay a comeback victory over Chicago.

• Gross, making a rare start against left-handed pitching, lined a two-run triple off Mark Buehrle to make it three-all in the fifth. Gross then delivered his third homer of the season on an 0-2 pitch from lefty Matt Thornton (1-1) in the 10th.

Twins 5, Yankees 1 -- Michael Cuddyer drove in three runs, and Minnesota's bullpen came through with 4 2/3 innings of scoreless relief after starter Nick Blackburn was hit in the nose by Bobby Abreu's line drive.

Nothing restores the bounce to a ballplayer's step like bringing a long losing streak to a halt.

Feeling refreshed after snapping a demoralizing 12-game skid the night before, the Kansas City Royals got solid pitching from Brian Bannister and home runs from Jose Guillen and Mark Grudzielanek to beat the Cleveland Indians 6-1 Sunday.

"We were a lot more loose and had a lot more energy and just kind of played more freely," said Alex Gordon, who had a two-run double in KC's second win in two weeks.

"Having that (streak) off our backs really helps."

Bannister (5-6) was working on a four-hit shutout when Grady Sizemore homered with one out in the eighth. Ramon Ramirez then got the last five outs.

Wichita State's Clinton McKeever and Oklahoma State's Luis Flores stretched the definition of two-way players until Sunday night.

Even in unfamiliar roles, they both turned in big games and helped their team on the mound and at bat.

Flores started and gave pitching-depleted OSU five crucial innings. He gave up seven hits and five runs, which is more than expected from a player who had thrown three innings this season. Flores is, however, far from a total stranger to the mound. He went 6-3 with a 3.00 ERA for Houston in 2006.

Sunday, he gave the Cowboys a chance. He also singled after moving to catcher.

McKeever, cut by OSU as a pitcher when he tried to walk on in 2005, drove in the tying run with a single in the ninth, then hit the go-ahead grand slam in the 10th. Also a rarely used pitcher, he threw two scoreless innings after WSU fell behind 7-5 in the seventh.

STILLWATER, Okla. _ Oklahoma State shortstop Jordy Mercer got Jordy Mercer the reliever off the hook and into the championship game of the Stillwater Regional.

Mercer homered three times, including the game-winner in the ninth, to give top-seeded OSU a 9-8 win over third-seeded TCU on Sunday afternoon at Reynolds Stadium.

"If Jordy Mercer would have woke up sick this morning, the Horned Frogs might have had a better shot," TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle said.

Mercer hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning and a three-run blast in the sixth to help stake OSU to an 8-2 lead.

The Frogs (44-19) rallied with five in the eighth against three OSU pitchers. Mercer gave up a three-run double to Bryan Kervin that cut the margin to one run. TCU's Ben Carruthers tied it with a home run off Mercer to lead off the ninth.

1982 at New Orleans

1988 at Stillwater, Okla.

1989 at Fresno, Calif

1991 at Wichita

1992 at Wichita

There have been 125 victories in John Force's career. Those victories have contributed to 14 championships. They have come at nearly every track on which the NHRA competes, they have come against racing legends, and they have put millions of dollars in his pockets.

But none, Force said, was bigger than the one he got Sunday in the funny-car division at the Summer Nationals at Heartland Park Topeka.

"This is the best," Force screamed at near-maximum volume to a gaggle of people who were just inches away from his face. "The best. This is my best race, right here in Topeka."

Given Force's propensity to, well, blather, it would normally be easy to dismiss that kind of statement. It would be easy to say it was just the adrenaline talking.

But considering the circumstances, it's easy to believe that Force was being 100 percent heartfelt in saying that a victory in a midseason race in Kansas which he entered fifth in points would be his biggest.

Once a graveyard of repeats and canceled series, the summer television season has become a creatively fertile period.

Here's a select list of new series, returning favorites and a few mind-boggling oddities that simply defy category. (The most acclaimed show from last summer, "Mad Men," is set to return sometime in July on AMC. A date has not been determined.)

New dramas, comedies

Thursday: "Swingtown" (9 p.m., CBS, Channel 12) revisits the 1970s and the heyday of wife-swapping and adulterous exhibitionism explored in "The Ice Storm" and other tales of the Pet Rock era.

June 29: "The Factory" (9 p.m., Spike, Channel 44) offers a blue-collar variation on "The Office," following four characters in an improvised comedy about working (and avoiding work) at a drab, small-town assembly-line job.

The first character in the musical film "Air" to break into song doesn't do so until about 18 minutes into the 90-minute film. That's probably not typical for a movie musical.

Then again, "Air" was never intended to be typical.

"We wanted to make a musical for people who hated musicals," Lawrence-based writer/director Jeremy Osbern said.

He wanted to stay away from the frothy, glitzy production numbers you find on Broadway. He wanted the songs to further the story, not distract from it. And he wanted characters that felt real emotion.

At the heart of "Air," which was shot on 35mm film, is its unifying exploration of love, as it follows three couples who stumble through the cause-and-effect of being in a relationship.