Your Oregon Ducks faced off against the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday night, in the Semifinals of the Big Ten tournament, looking to advance to a matchup with the #1 seed UCLA Bruins. The Ducks would jump out to a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the 1st inning, after a Ryan Cooney leadoff double and a couple of productive groundouts. Oregon would maintain that 1-0 lead through the next two innings, until Maddox Molony joined the party with a solo homerun, doubling the lead to 2-0. And an inning later,
Angel Laya got in on the action with a solo shot of his own, 3-0 Ducks after 5 innings of play.
But the 7th inning is where the real fun began. After loading the bases with two outs, the Ducks would score two more runs on a double by Drew Smith, making it 5-0. And then a few pitches later, Brayden Jaksa would get involved with a 2-run blast to left, 7-0 Oregon. Drew Smith would get his 3rd RBI on a sac-fly in the top of the 9th inning, securing the Oregon win 8-0.
Now, y’all are probably thinking “that was a quick recap, what happened in the other halves of the innings?”. And to that, I say this: there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about, because Will Sanford was absolutely COOKING on Saturday. 6 innings, 2 hits, 9 strikeouts, shutout. The kid was en fuego. As were the two pitchers behind him, Tanner Bradley (2 innings, 1 hit, 3 strikeouts) and Luke Morgan (1 inning, one hit). The pitching was lights-out, and the offense actually had the decency to have a pulse to back them up (unlike a certain MLB team I follow). Fantastic stuff.
It was a great game all around. And exactly the type of game this team needs to have again on Sunday against UCLA if they have any shot of beating them and claiming the Big Ten Championship.
As Always, ‘Sco Ducks!
