Should Oregon advance to the Super Regional, the Ducks are going to remember this play by third baseman Sabin Ceballos.
The junior college transfer, who has led Oregon with his bat, turned in the defensive play of the year for the Ducks. Ceballos’ barehanded play to get Alan Espinal by literally a quarter of a step erased Vanderbilt’s rally in the seventh inning.
Oregon then went on to defeat the Commodores 8-7 and advance to the Nashville Regional final. Vanderbilt will now play Xavier in an elimination game at 12 pm PST and the winner of that contest will play Oregon at 6 pm and they’ll have to defeat the Ducks twice in order to win the regional.
Game 7 of the regional would be played Monday if Oregon loses Sunday night.
After two innings of play, it was 4-4 and the thought of Turner Spoljaric going six wasn’t looking good for the freshman. But once RJ Scheck hit a homer that seemingly went five miles to tie the game at 4-4, Spoljaric settled down and retired the next nine straight Commodores.
The Ducks were able to grab the lead in the fifth on Ceballos’ run-scoring single and later in the inning, Jacob Walsh lined a double to left-center that scored three runs to give Oregon an 8-4 advantage.
Vanderbilt managed to put together a small rally in the six by putting on the first two hitters and Spoljaric looked like he was at the end of his rope. But the Duck pitcher was able to retire the next three hitters.
Everything was calm in the eighth with Matt Dallas pitching a perfect inning, but the ninth created some excitement that Oregon did not need.
Closer Josh Mollerus made it interesting, to say the least as he allowed a 2-run homer off of the bat of Chris Maldonado. It was 8-7 and Oregon still needed two outs. Fortunately, Mollerus coaxed fly balls to centerfielder Colby Shade and that huge exhale came from the Oregon dugout.
Now the Ducks are 27 outs from going to a Super Regional for the first time since 2012.