OMAHA, Neb. – Parity, all the talk in college baseball, is now for real with Oregon State the national champion.

“This shows it can be done,” Oregon State athletic director Bob De Carolis said. “You get the right kids and you live the dream and keep fighting and working hard at it, it can work for you.”

Northern teams have proved they can compete with their sunshine counterparts during the season. But until Oregon State came to Omaha, the only other Northern schools to reach the College World Series since 2000 were Nebraska and Notre Dame.

Nebraska was the only Northern team among the national top eight seeds for this year’s 64-team NCAA tournament. The others were Clemson, Rice, Texas, Alabama, Cal State Fullerton, Georgia and Georgia Tech.

See a pattern?

The Beavers, who beat North Carolina in the best-of-three College World Series championship round, became the first Northern team since Ohio State in 1966 to win the national title.

Oregon State did it after losing its CWS opener 11-1 to Miami – a school with 22 appearances in Omaha – and then rolling Sun Belt teams Georgia, Miami and Rice twice to reach the final series.

A growing number of schools have begun to emphasize baseball because of the sport’s revenue potential. Talent has spread the last 20 years because of scholarship reductions. The limit now is 11.7 per team.

In Oregon State’s case, the consolidation of the Northern and Southern Divisions of the Pacific-10 Conference in baseball in 1999 made the Beavers’ program more attractive to prospective players, De Carolis said.

Annual series with traditional college baseball programs such as Southern California, Arizona and Arizona State became regular fare – and a selling point for coach Pat Casey.

Jonah Nickerson, the CWS Most Outstanding Player, and Dallas Buck, the winner in Monday’s 3-2 title-clinching win, are among the Oregon natives who took notice.

“Pat convinced the Bucks and Nickersons of the world to not go pro and to go to college, where they could play a highly competitive schedule and get to the College World Series and maybe play for a national championship,” De Carolis said.

“Pat always was able to identify talent. It’s just a matter of getting them to stay at home. It all came together.”

The process took some time. The Beavers finished eighth in the Pac-10 in 1999 and no higher than sixth in any following season until winning the first of two straight conference championships in 2005.

“We had some guys that we convinced to come to school there and believed in what I was doing,” Casey said. “It’s not an easy place at times. We just joined the conference in 1999, and there were long plane flights home, and people that questioned you.

“You just have to have a lot of heart and determination to believe you can do it because if you don’t believe you can do it, your players can see it in your eyes.”

The Beavers lost both their games at the CWS last year in their third Omaha appearance and first since 1952.