It was a busy Sunday for the Oregon Ducks with both diamond Duck teams in action in addition to the Women’s Basketball team playing in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament
Women’s Basketball
After cruising past Virginia Tech in the opening round the Ducks faced quite the challenge in the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament as they were taking on the No. 1 seed Texas Longhorns in Austin for a spot in the sweet 16. In order to pull the upset Oregon would need to play a perfect game and early on things were actually
looking pretty good.
Mia Jacobs scored 5 quick points and Katie Fiso would hit an early 3 to give the Ducks a 13-8 lead about 5 minutes into the game. As long as Oregon could hang around they would put pressure on the heavily favored Longhorns. Texas would finish the first quarter strong though and after 1 it was Texas 28 Oregon 21.
Texas was starting to take control of the game but Oregon was not making it easy. The Longhorns were able to stretch their lead to as many as 15 near the end of the first half but a Janiyah Williams half-time buzzer beating 3 would cut the lead back down to 11 and give Oregon a bit of momentum going into half time.
Again, Texas was leading this game but they were by no means in complete control of it.
To start the 3rd quarter though Texas would gain complete control of the game and never look back thanks to a 8-1 run to start the half punctuated by a Jordan Lee three pointer to make it 53-35.
That Texas run effectively ended the game as Oregon was over matched in the 2nd half and they were unable to mount any rally to make the game competitive again. Texas would continue to assert there will and eventually pull out a 100-58 win to move onto the Sweet 16 and end Oregon’s season
Softball
On the Softball Diamond Oregon looked to pick up there first B1G road series victory of the season after splitting the first two games of the weekend series at Purdue.
Coach Lombardi decided to go with Lyndsey Grein in the rubber match to get the all important 2nd victory of the weekend and secure the series. Coming into the game Grein had pitched 9 shutout innings on the weekend (7 in her Friday start and 2 in relief on Saturday) but it is concerning that Lombardi doesn’t have enough faith in another pitcher to get the job done against Purdue.
Luckily Lyndsey Grein is a machine created in a lab to pitch softballs as she rewarded Lombardi with another excellent start on Sunday. The problem was Oregon’s bats could get nothing going against Purdue’s starter Julia Gossett who also pitched a gem making Sunday’s game a true pitchers duel. Both pitchers were able to toss 5 innings of scoreless ball and it wasn’t until the bottom of the 6th were Purdue would scratch across the games first run thanks to a Moriah Polar double that would score Khloe Banks and make it 1-0 Boilermakers. Grein was able to prevent any further damage but out of nowhere the Ducks were 3 outs away from dropping the series.
Luckily the Ducks had a rally in them that would get started with an Amari Harper single and Ayanna Shaw double to put 2 runners in scoring position. Taryn Ho would hit a fly ball that was deep enough and allowed pinch runner Presley Lawton to tag from 3rd and score the tying run
Braiesey Rosa would follow it up with a single to score Shaw and the Ducks had the late lead.
Grein was in to complete her 2nd game of the weekend and she was two outs away from doing so, but Purdue’s own machine Julia Gossett (the starting pitcher) pinch hit and hit a ball to deep center field that Ayanna Shaw could not come up with. Luckily Elon Butler was right there to help out her teammate and get the ball into to start a relay that would get Gossett out at 3rd base. The last Purdue batter would fly out and Oregon, by the thinnest of margins, was able to pick up the win to take the series.
Baseball
Over on the Baseball diamond Oregon was looking to pick up there 2nd sweep in B1G play and remain undefeated in conference after crushing Northwestern on Friday and earning a hard fought victory on Saturday.
After missing his start the previous weekend due to the flu Oregon turned the ball over to Cal Scolari to try and get the sweep. Things were looking great early as Scolari struck out the side in the first inning and the offence followed it up with 2 quick runs to give the Ducks a 2-0 lead.
Things would turn quickly though as Northwestern got to Scolari in the 2nd picking up 3 hits and a walk to score 3 runs and give Northwestern the 3-2 lead.
After a scoreless 3rd inning coach Waz gave the ball to reliver Toby Twist in the 4th inning and the Wildcats would rough up Twist early and often. After 2 Northwestern doubles made it 4-0 Twist lost command hitting a batter and walking another to load the bases with only 1 out. Northwestern would stretch across two more runs to make it 6-2 before Waz relieved Twist with Michael Meckna who would limit any further damage.
Meckna then would run into problems of his own in the 5th inning where Northwestern was able to hit two long-balls and score 4 more runs to make it 10-2 and this game was looking like a reverse of Oregon’s Friday night dominant win.
After another scoreless Ducks inning in the bottom half of the 5th the Ducks offence would start to answer back in the 6th thanks to a Dominic Hellman 2 run home-run to cut the lead to 6
In the 7th inning the Ducks rally would continue. With runners on 1st and 2nd and no one out Josh Schleichardt would single to left to score a run followed by a Jax Gimenez single to score another and make it a 10-6 game.
Then with 2 runenrs still on base Dominic Hellman hit his 2nd home run of the game to bring the Ducks all the way back to only down 1 run
After a rough start to the day from Oregon’s pitchers Blake Crawford and Luke Morgan combined for 4 and 2/3 scoreless innings to keep Northwestern stuck at 10 and to allow Oregon to get back into the game and they also got some help from catcher Brayden Jacksa who gunned down a Northwestern base runner to end the top of the 9th with Oregon still only down 1.
In the bottom half Ryan Cooney lead things off with a solo home run to tie the game and the Ducks had come all the way back to tie the game.
In extra innings though the Ducks bats were unable to get the final hit to complete the comeback. In the 10th Oregon would strand runners on 1st and 2nd and in the 11th they would leave the bases loaded. In the 12th the Wildcats would stretch across a run off a single, sacrifice, wild-pitch and another single and this time the Ducks couldn’t mount the rally in the 12th with runners once again on 1st and 2nd but Oregon couldn’t get the 11th run they needed and they would eventually fall. Oregon still secured the series win but missed out on picking up the all important sweep.
Coach Waz post-game:
