Louisville, which had scored 77 runs in eight NCAA tournament games, took leads of 5-0 and 10-4 in its first CWS appearance before Rice pitchers Scott Lonergan and Bobby Bramhall combined for four scoreless innings.

The Owls (55-12), the No. 2 national seed, will play Sunday against the winner of Friday night's North Carolina-Mississippi State game. The Cardinals (46-23) will face the loser of that game on Sunday.

Rice, with 14 players taken in last week's major league draft and wins in 35 of 37 games, arrived in Omaha with some heavy baggage after failing to score in its last 23 innings at last year's CWS. That streak ended at 25 2-3 innings when Lehmann singled in Rice's four-run third inning.

Rice also had a three-run fifth inning and got home runs by Joe Savery in the sixth and Aaron Luna in the seventh to make it 10-9.

Bramhall (7-2) kept it a one-run game in the eighth after he intentionally walked Chris Dominguez to load the bases with one out. Bramhall struck out Pete Rodriguez after running the count full, then got Derrick Alfonso to fly out to end the threat.

The Owls broke open the game against Trystan Magnuson (3-3) in the bottom half. Chad Lembeck singled leading off and Tyler Henley beat out Dominguez's throw from third for a bunt single before Joe Savery's liner into left tied it at 10.