That three-game sweep at the hands of the Huskies in PK Park seems so long ago now.
Oregon managed to get some revenge over its rival with a 12-7 win over Washington in the Pac-12 semifinals. The Ducks will now play for the title against either No. 1 seed Stanford or 9-seeded Arizona Saturday night in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Sabin Ceballos, who is in line to be the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, led the way with six runs batted in, including a two-run homer to right.
Oregon jumped on the Dawgs with three runs in the first and three more in the second inning to take a very early 6-0 lead. But Scottsdale Stadium is the college baseball version of Coors Field, so a six-run lead is far from safe.
Washington was able to get the bats going in the bottom of third as it scored five runs after the first two batters went out.
But the Ducks never gave the lead up. They scored five runs in the fifth to effectively get those runs back they gave up in the third. Drew Smith’s triple scored Tanner Smith and Seballos’ two-run single ended the rally to give Oregon an 11-5 lead.
Washington cut the lead to 11-7 in the bottom half and that was it. Oregon brought in reliever Greyson Grinsell and he shut the Huskies down. In his longest outing of the year, the freshman went 3 2/3 inning, gave up just two hits, struck out six and he earned his much-deserved second win of the year.
Whether the Ducks win or lose tomorrow night, they can go into the NCAA tournament with some momentum on their side. This was a team coming off losing five of their last seven games before winning at least three games in the Pac-12 tournament.