UC Irvine’s extra special again, 8-7

They came here as an unknown, the supposed pushover of the College World Series with a baseball program that had never won a postseason game.

But UC Irvine has suddenly become the bully of college baseball, a team that has cut down some of the game’s elite during a magical postseason run that continued Tuesday night at Rosenblatt Stadium.

There, the Anteaters overcame a four-run deficit in the eighth inning, then defeated Arizona State, 8-7, on a run-scoring single by Ollie Linton in the bottom of the 10th, eliminating the Sun Devils, a team many picked to win the national championship because of a prolific offense that led the nation in scoring.

The Sun Devils were the latest in a line of national stalwarts that the upstart Anteaters have taken down in this postseason. They knocked off Texas and Wichita State to get to the series and then eliminated four-time national champion Cal State Fullerton on Monday.

Their reward is a date with defending national champion Oregon State at 4 p.m. today. They will have to defeat the Beavers twice to stay alive and advance to the national championship series, but that idea, thought of as improbable when the postseason began, is now not so far-fetched.

“The only ones that have believed in us up until now was ourselves,” second baseman Cody Cipriano said. “But I think we’ve started to open some eyes. It’s a hard road going through so many teams with such great tradition, but I think we’re starting to build our own tradition.”

If so, the last two days are going to be a very large part of that.

A day after eliminating Cal State Fullerton in a 13-inning epic, the Anteaters (47-16-1) staged a gritty comeback in front of an announced crowd of 29,034 -- the second largest in College World history -- and by the end, their determined, never-say-die style of play had won the hearts of the fans, who cheered loudly for the underdog.

When Linton came to bat with the bases loaded and one out in the 10th inning, the fans rose to their feet, chanting “Ol-lie! Ol-lie!”

He hit a 2-2 curveball through a drawn-in infield and into right field to drive in Matt Morris with the winning run.

“I could feel the energy coming from the crowd, but I could feel it more coming from our dugout,” Linton said. “Our teammates are always behind us and they pushed me to get that hit.”

The energy spilled over from an eighth-inning comeback. Arizona State (49-15) had taken a 7-3 lead with three runs in the top of the inning, but the Anteaters stormed back against Arizona State closer Jason Jarvis, who had saved 11 games this season.

Jarvis walked three consecutive batters to start the inning, then hit Ben Orloff to score a run. Cipriano followed with a run-scoring single that made it 7-5 and, after a pitching change, Morris hit a two-RBI double off Mike Leake.

Cipriano was on his way home from first on the play but hit the brakes and grabbed third base coach Greg Bergeron as he fell to the ground and was called out on coach’s interference.

He would have been the go-ahead run, a play that loomed larger two batters later when Sean Madigan grounded into an inning-ending double play, but the victory erased the blunder.

“Even though that all happened, I knew this team was going to come through,” Cipriano said.

Anteaters Coach Dave Serrano said the players have won over fans because of their team-first attitude.

“This was a crowd that knew nothing about UC Irvine -- or should I say Cal Irvine -- and now they realize that this may be one of the better teams, and I mean team, that’s in this field,” he said. “We don’t want this to stop, trust me.

” ... The biggest and strongest don’t always win. It’s the best team. We’re playing on emotion right now and adrenaline and that gives us a shot.”

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North Carolina eliminated Louisville with a 3-1 victory and will face Rice today.

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peter.yoon@latimes.com