By Rusty Miller
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - There is no dispute that Southwest Missouri State is headed for its first College World Series.

One pitch after a controversial call on a two-strike breaking ball, Tony Piazza hit a grand slam as the Bears beat Ohio State 13-7 Sunday night.

Piazza's blast over the wall in left capped an eight-run rally and sent the Bears into a Saturday matchup with either Rice or Houston in Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium.

The Bears (40-24), champions of the Missouri Valley Conference, won the first two games of the best-of-three super regional at Ohio State's Bill Davis Stadium. They scored five runs in the eighth inning to win Saturday night's opener, 13-8.

Ohio State's bench protested and a sellout crowd of 5,090 booed loudly when plate umpire David Rogers called a ball on a 1-2 pitch from reliever Kyle Brown to Piazza with the score tied 6-6 and two out in the sixth.

"It was close," Piazza said. "He had a pretty hard curveball. He started it outside the zone and it just broke down and out of the zone."

Piazza then jumped on the next pitch, lining it over the wall in left for his 15th of the season.

"I tried to get him inside with a fastball," Brown said. "I didn't get it inside enough and he turned on it."

A fan threw a plastic water bottle at Rogers as the umpire walked near the Ohio State dugout to eject pitching coach Pat Bangtson.

Ohio State coach Bob Todd was upset by the call.

"Everybody's got replay and they can go back and take their own look at it on television," he said before declining to discuss the pitch further.

Shawn Marcum then followed Piazza's blast with a homer to give the Bears an 11-6 lead.

"I was just counting the seconds," Piazza said of his long wait for the game to finally come to an end. "Then I was just looking for someone to hug."

Piazza drove in five runs, adding an RBI double in the eighth.

Ohio State (44-21), which won the Big Ten tournament to make the NCAA field, led 6-3 through five innings on the strength of home runs by Brett Garrard and Steve Caravati.

Then the Bears broke the game open with eight unearned runs in the sixth.

With one out, Adam Pummill reached base on an error by shortstop Garrard. After a fielder's choice, the Bears had two outs and a runner at first. Scott Nasby then chased Ohio State starter Mike Madsen with a single.

Ohio State's bullpen which had been pounded the night before, walking in three runs in the eighth inning after the Buckeyes had come back from an 8-2 deficit to tie it. The Buckeyes' relievers retired just one of the first seven batters they faced on Saturday night, then failed to get an out in the first six batters on Sunday night.

Trent Luyster (3-1) relieved Madsen and failed to retire any of the three batters he faced, with Dant'e Brinkley and Brooks Colvin each singling in runs and Rick Wilson drawing a walk to load the bases.

Brown took over for Madsen and walked Clay Wheeler to force in the tying run and set up Piazza's big shot.

Southwest Missouri State had come within one win of going to Omaha for the College World Series in 1999 and again last season.

Coach Keith Guttin reflected on what the program was like when he took it over.

"I think back to the first home game 21 years ago," he said, still soaked from having water dumped on him in the postgame celebration. "I think I dragged the infield with my old LeMans."

Ziegler (12-1) pitched the first 6 2-3 innings before giving way to Bob Zimmerman. Zimmerman took over in the seventh with two on, two out and a run in and picked up a strikeout to end the threat.

Brinkley had three hits while Colvin, Wilson, Wheeler, Piazza and Greg Mathis each had two.

"The last four times we've been here we didn't have the pitching to finish it off," Guttin said. "That was the difference: we had the pitching this time."