CORVALLIS — If you had Matthew Gretler in the pool to pick who hits the home run to send Oregon State into next weekend’s Super Regional, collect your winnings.

The junior third baseman would have been a long shot to hit the long shot.

Gretler entered Monday’s championship game of the Corvallis Regional batting .198 for the season, lowest among the Beaver starters, five of whom are hitting better than .300. Coach Mitch Canham has kept Gretler in the lineup primarily for his defensive prowess.

But on one of college baseball’s biggest stages, at perhaps the Corvallis Regional’s biggest moment, Gretler came through with the game-winning round-tripper, a seventh-inning solo shot for the final run in Oregon State’s 7-6 victory over Vanderbilt at Goss Stadium.

The victory sends Oregon State (47-16), the nation’s No. 3 seed, into a Super Regional against No. 14 Auburn (40-19) next weekend at Goss.

Praise be to Gretler for helping create that opportunity.

“He is just about as tough as they come,” Canham said as he met with media afterward.

Most fans don’t know the half of it.

In the final game of Oregon State’s opening weekend series at Surprise, Ariz., on Feb. 20 against New Mexico, Gretler injured his left thumb sliding into second.

“Tore my UCL completely,” the Bonney Lake, Wash., native said.

But Gretler played in the next game. And the next. He hasn’t missed a game all season because of the injury, playing with a brace to protect the thumb on his catching hand. Surgery was an option. It will likely be necessary at some point, perhaps this summer.

“I thought about it,” said Gretler, younger brother of Michael Gretler, third baseman on Oregon State’s 2018 College World Series championship club. “But I thought I’d be more of a help to the team being able to go out and defend it like I can and not worry so much about the bat this year. … just do everything I can to help us win.”

Gretler came to the plate with one out in the bottom of the seventh, the score tied 6-6. The Beavers led 6-3 after five innings, but the Commodores had chipped away with two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh.

The OSU third-sacker hit the first pitch foul down the third-base line, then seemed to shake his left hand in pain as he stepped back into the box.

“It doesn’t hurt so bad,” he claimed after the game. “It happens more on swing-throughs. I wear the brace, and our trainer does a really good job of keeping the swelling out of it. We’re trying to do everything we can to make sure I can go at all times.”

On a 2-2 count, Gretler launched one long over the fence in left field — his fifth four-bagger of the season — and Goss Stadium was the scene of bedlam.

“Two-strike approach,” he said. “Just wanted to put the ball in play. I saw the slider down and I went at it. I knew I hit it hard enough; just didn’t know if I had enough under it to get over the fence.”

In the OSU dugout, “we went crazy,” center fielder Jacob Melton said. Pitcher Cooper Hjerpe was in the bullpen warming up for relief duty.

“I heard the smack (of the ball) on the bullpen roof,” the junior All-American said. “That was fun.”

“He’ll remember a hit like that for the rest of his life,” Michael Gretler, 26, said by phone from his home in Seattle, where he works in finance for a biotech company in Seattle.

Gretler had plenty of help from his teammates in Monday’s win, and he needed it against a program of similar national cred to Oregon State’s. Tim Corbin has won more than 800 games in his 20 seasons at the Vanderbilt helm, claiming national championships in 2014 and ’19 and reaching the championship game last year.

The Commodores (39-23) lost their Friday opener to San Diego 3-2, then swept through New Mexico State, San Diego and Oregon State by an aggregate score of 43-6 — including Sunday’s 8-1 romp past the Beavers — to earn a Monday rematch for the chance to move on.

Vanderbilt right-fielder Spencer Jones won the Regional MVP award, but it could gone to Hjerpe, the Friday night winner who worked the final two innings on Monday, yielding no hits or runs with one walk and five strikeouts to gain his first safe since his freshman season. Hjerpe’s last relief appearance came a year ago Tuesday, when he was the sixth of seven pitchers OSU used in its ill-fated 8-5 loss to Dallas Baptist in the Regional championship game. The 6-3, 200-pound sophomore gave up three hits and the final two runs while working 2/3 of an inning.

“That didn’t turn out how we wanted,” Hjerpe said.

It was much different on Monday. Hjerpe was masterful against one of the most powerful lineups in the country.

“It’s all hands on deck,” Hjerpe said. “You lose, you go home. Before the game, I told (Canham) I was ready. He knew that. We were on the same page.”

Corbin said he wasn’t surprised to see Hjerpe step to the mound in the eighth.

“If you want to beat Vanderbilt, you better put in your best,” the Vanderbilt coach said. “He’s good. He’s funky. There’s a reason why he’s successful. He’s a very competitive kid — you can tell that. If I had him, I’d do the same thing.”

It was a rebound day for Melton, the Pac-12 Player of the Year, All-American and National Player of the Year candidate. He had been in a hitting funk through the Regional, going 1 for 13 in the first three games. But the 6-3, 210-pound Medford native hit the ball hard his first three at-bats Monday — a first-inning single to right, a third-inning drive that was caught at the wall by Vandy center-fielder Enrique Bradfield, then a towering two-run homer to left-center that gave the Beavers a 4-3 advantage in the fifth.

“I’ve struggled pretty mightily through the Regional,” Melton said. “Didn’t show up the way I wanted to. Let that affect me mentally last night. Today was a big day to break out of that and just get back to being me.”

Melton said he is not playing through an injury, though he dealt with a hamstring issue during the Pac-12 Tournament.

“It was a little sore in Arizona,” he said. “Nothing too crazy, though.”

Melton came close to another extra-base hit in the third when Bradfield flagged down his poke after a long run.

“The way I showed the first three games, I was just happy to hit the ball hard,” he said. “(Bradfield) is a phenomenal athlete. I wasn’t too surprised he tracked that one down. The guy absolutely flies. I took some confidence from getting a good swing and squaring the ball up.”

Oregon State needed a good start, and Justin Boyd made sure that happened. The junior right-fielder led off the Beavers’ first with a towering home run to left.

“Boyd crushed it,” Canham said. “Right at that moment — you know it’s possibly the last game of the year — putting us on the board like that, you can exhale a little bit.”

Starting pitcher Jaren Hunter was smoking early, striking out five of the first six Commodores he faced. He ended up giving two runs in 3 1/3 innings.

“Jared came out with great mentality, sinking the ball down the zone, firing guys up,” Canham said.

The Beavers got four runs in the fifth, on Melton’s two-run homer and a two-out, two-strike, two-run single by sophomore shortstop Kyle Dernedde, to go ahead 6-3.

“That was huge,” Canham said.

But Dernedde gave a couple back in the sixth on an error with two outs and runners on first and second. Tate Kolwyck’s routine ground-ball went through Dernedde’s legs into left field, scoring one run and opening the door for another.

Vanderbilt scored a run to tie at 6-6 in the top of the seventh, setting up Gretler’s heroics. Vandy’s Javier Vaz opened the ninth with a walk and advanced to second on a ground-out, but Hjerpe closed the door with a punch out of pinch-hitter Matthew Folk, and the celebration was on.

“The guys showed a tremendous amount of heart,” Canham said. “Before the game, we didn’t have to say a whole lot. Everyone knew what the mission was today.

“When they showed up at the yard, you could see a different look from each of them — confidence raging, resiliency. All our pitchers did a great job. It seemed like non-stop energy and push. I couldn’t be prouder of these guys.”

As is their wont, the Beavers showed patience at the plate, drawing eight free passes — six walks, two hit by pitch — to go with 11 basehits. The Commodores had only five hits but seven walks.

“If you’re going to beat Oregon State, you have to get ahead in the count, because they can swing it,” Corbin said. “And we didn’t. The quality of the pitches weren’t good enough.

“(The Beavers) can pitch, they have some good hitters and they played well. We gave them a run. I’m really proud of the kids.”

The OSU players said there was extra motivation to win the Regional — a chance to play before the fans at Goss one more weekend.

“They’re the best fans in the world,” Hjerpe said. “I said (after Friday’s game) it was the loudest they’ve ever been. I think they broke that today.”

“Especially when Coop came in and got three straight strikeouts (in the eighth),” Gretler said. “With those fans, you want to keep everything here. The road to Omaha has to go through Goss. You just want to keep going.”

“This place is special for sure,” Melton said. “Coming in three years ago during the pandemic, I could only dream about how loud it would be and how many fans we’d get. It’s a really special place. They show up and they support us through thick and thin. To have an opportunity to play in front of them at a Super Regional is all we can ask for. We’re all excited about this coming weekend.”

Monday is normally a “bullpen day” for Hjerpe, when he throws “20 pitches, max.”

He threw 36 Monday, but said he will still be ready to take the ball for the opener of the three-game series against Auburn (40-19) either Friday or Saturday.

“I feel good right now,” he said. Then he paused and smiled. “I don’t know about in a few hours.”

Canham would love to have his ace ready for Game 1 against Auburn, like Vanderbilt a potent SEC club. The Tigers scored 51 runs in three games in sweeping Southeast Louisiana (19-7), Florida State (21-7) and UCLA (11-4) to win the Auburn Regional.

Canham and his staff began preparation for the Tigers in the evening hours Monday. They expect at least three good days of practice with their players, who are entering finals week on the OSU campus.

“We’re going to take care of the classroom, too,” Canham promised.

His players got pretty good grades, too, for their competitiveness and performance in the clutch on Monday.

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