Stayin' alive–California celebrates after a 9-8 win over Baylor in NCAA Regionals on June 6. The Bears rallied from an 8-5 deficit in the ninth inning to advance to the Super Regionals.

The California Bears baseball team not only saved their baseball season facing elimination against Baylor Monday night in the NCAA Regionals, but also gave the program another pulse, keeping it on life support another while longer.

The baseball program was put in jeopardy last year when Gov. Jerry Brown sought another $500 million in cuts to the UC campuses, including $80 million from the Berkeley campus.

The cost-cutting move from Cal administrators involved plans to get rid of the baseball and men's gymnastics teams. Despite rigorous efforts to save the baseball program, the Bears are still possibly set to be the only Division I school in the UC system to not have a baseball program after the 2010-11 season.

But team supporters, alumni, former players, and even the parents of current players have stepped in and raised $9 million of the $10 million needed to not only reinstate the program, but provide sustainability for the future.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau was presented with the $9 million on April 7, still short of the $10 million needed, but enough to convince Cal administrators that the program could and would be saved.

Down 8-5 in an elimination game against Baylor, the Bears (35-21) pulled off a 4-run rally in the ninth inning to send the other Bears from Waco, Texas home and keep their own season, and program, alive.

The Bears opened the season knowing it might very well be their last, and are now headed to the Super Regionals for the first time and two wins away from its first trip to the College World Series since 1992.

What began as a season of doubt has turned into a season to be remembered-Cal baseball's last stand. Cal baseball received unconditional support from its fan and alumni, which could be seen at a May 22 game against UCLA at Jackie Robinson Stadium in Los Angeles, where hundreds of Cal fans were wearing "Save Cal Baseball" t-shirts.

And $9 million dollars later, the Bears will play Dallas Baptist (42-18) in an intriguing Super Regionals match-up.

The Patriots are also a team that is surprising the college baseball community, knocking off Regional host TCU, Oklahoma and Oral Roberts to advance to the Super Regionals as an independent, having only been a Division I team for six seasons.

Dallas Baptist and Cal will play a best-of-three series at Santa Clara University's Stephen Schott Stadium starting Saturday as the Bears hope to make a pressing case to administrators that a program facing termination would still be able to make it to college baseball's biggest stage-the College World Series.

And more fittingly, they are playing at Santa Clara because neither team has adequate facilities to host a Super Regional. From extinction to endangered to stability, the Bears' baseball program continues to show its worth.

Whether it was facing elimination or facing administrators pulling the plug to a program on life support, Cal baseball is still on the road to Omaha.

Nothing a few dollars, pride and heart can fix.