2021 All-American third team pitcher Brooke Yanez has entered the transfer portal, but could still return to the Oregon Ducks in 2023.
The NCAA transfer portal has continued to impact nearly every one of the Oregon Ducks athletic programs as student-athletes continue to search for the best opportunities they can on what is now effectively an open market.
Kelly Graves and the women’s basketball program saw massive losses this offseason, and now the portal has struck again, this time on the women’s softball side.
Brooke Yanez, who redshirted this past year because of a season-ending shoulder injury, entered the transfer portal on Tuesday, according to James Crepea of The Oregonian.
Yanez, who graduated this past weekend in Eugene, initially reported she was “most definitely” going to return to Oregon in 2023, so this could just be a chance for her to explore her options, while leaving the door open to a return to the Ducks.
Yanez was one of the best pitchers in the NCAA in 2021, earning All-Pac-12 First Team honors and third-team All-American, while going 22-6 with a 2.11 ERA. Her 10.29 strikeouts per seven innings was tops in the Pac-12 and 13th nationally – and a return to Oregon would be a huge boost to the program in 2023.
Oregon Ducks softball ace pitcher Brooke Yanez announced via Twitter that she will miss the entire 2022 season due to injury.
It’s a big blow for the Ducks. Yanez was one of the best pitchers in the country last season. The first-team all-conference hurler was 22-6 and posted a 2.11 earned run average a year ago.
The transfer from UC-Davis was going to be a fifth-year senior this season, but it’s assumed she will receive a medical redshirt and Yanez says she will be ready to go for the 2023 season.
In her absence, the Oregon pitching staff will consist of Makenna Kliethermes, Jordan Dail, and Stevie Hansen.
So far this year, the Ducks are 16-3 and are set to open their home season today at Jane Sanders Stadium. The Ducks will host North Dakota State, Portland State, and Oregon State in the Oregon/Oregon State tournament. The Ducks will play PSU at 4 p.m.
Terra McGowen sent Shealyn O’Leary’s 149th pitch to the right-field wall to score Haley Cruse to give the Ducks the 3-2 win over Texas and to extend the Oregon Ducks softball season for at least a couple of more hours.
After Brooke Yanez held the Longhorns scoreless in the top of the eighth, the Ducks got cracking. Cruse lined a double down the right-field line to begin the extra-inning rally. Allee Bunker coaxed a walk to set up McGowen.
The Oregon catcher could have easily sacrificed the runners over, but coach Melyssa Lombardi trusted McGowen to swing away, and swing away she did.
With the victory, the Ducks and Longhorns meet up one more time tonight to decide the winner of the Regional and to see who goes on to Oklahoma State for the Super Regional next weekend.
Oregon softball ends its two-year hiatus from the NCAA tournament, but in a surprising move, Eugene wasn’t selected as a Regional.
It’s been several years, but the Oregon Ducks softball team is back in the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately, in a surprising turn of events, the Ducks will not host a Regional despite a 37-15 overall record and finishing third in the Pac-12.
Instead, a date with former coach Mike White is on the horizon as Oregon will travel to No. 12 overall seed Texas and play in the Austin Regional alongside Texas State, Saint Francis (PA), and the host Longhorns.
The Ducks open up with Texas State Friday, May 21 at 4:30 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN3. The Bobcats finished the regular season with a 38-12 overall record. Saint Francis, who comes into Austin with a 40-8 mark, will take on the 39-11 Longhorns to open up the double-elimination Regional at 3 p.m. PST.
The various NCAA committees have had a history of setting up matchups that might be intriguing to fans as well as the media and have passed them off as coincidence. But pitting the Ducks against the coach that put the program on the map isn’t a coincidence.
White left the Ducks for Texas after taking Oregon to the 2018 Women’s College Series. In White’s last season, the Ducks went 53-10. When he left, the Ducks hired Melyssa Lombardi and after a mass defection of players, it took her just one full season and part of 2020 to get the back to prominence with an NCAA tourney birth.
In order to set up this “coincidence,” Eugene was passed over as a Regional site. Texas hosting a Regional isn’t a surprise. Oregon not hosting certainly is. If Oregon should get out of Austin as the winners, the Ducks will most likely travel to Tuscaloosa to face the No. 4 overall seed barring a giant upset.
According to the NCAA RPI rankings, the main formula the committee usually looks at when determines sites, the Ducks were No. 15. But Oregon was passed over for the likes of Duke, Kentucky, Arizona State, and Washington.
The Ducks had a better conference record than Arizona, ASU, and Washington, and Oregon has a better RPI ranking than Regional hosts Washington (16) and Kentucky (18). But for whatever reason, Jane Sanders Stadium was passed over.
UCLA, the defending national champions, is the No. 2 overall seed with its 41-4 record with two of those four losses coming to Oregon. The Pac-12 received six bids with Stanford also getting an at-large.
It wasn’t all disappointing news for Ducks, however. The Pac-12 announced its annual awards and Oregon was properly represented. Allee Bunker, Haley Cruse, and pitcher Brooke Yanez were all First-Team conference selections. Alyssa Brito and Terra McGowan were on the Second Team with Hannah Delgado on the Third Team.
Brito and Bunker were on the All-Defensive squad with Brito and Delgado on the All-Freshmen team.
Oregon’s four-game sweep over California ends the regular season as now the Ducks await their tourney fate.
Now comes the hard part.
The Oregon Ducks softball team completed a four-game road sweep at California Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 victory over the Bears. With the win, Oregon ended the regular season with a 37-15 overall record and 14-10 in Pac-12 play.
It was announced earlier that Jane Sanders Stadium would be one of 16 possible sites to host a softball regional and it’s now a near certainty with the Ducks’ success this season. The NCAA Softball Selection Show will be televised on ESPN tonight at 6 PST and Oregon will find out who the other three teams will be in the Eugene Regional.
Oregon hasn’t been in the tournament since 2017. That year they advanced all the way to the Women’s College World Series and finished 57-10 overall. It should be noted that the Ducks have never lost a Regional game at home.
Whether or not the Ducks would host a Super Regional is still in question as Oregon is on the bubble in that regard. The Top 8 teams host the Super and currently, the Ducks’ RPI is at 14. So barring a few upsets, Oregon would most likely have to win on the road in order to advance to Oklahoma City.
But the Ducks wouldn’t have been in such a good position to host a Regional if they had not defeated the teams they should beat, such as Cal this weekend.
Brooke Yanez got the weekend off with a good start with the 2-0 victory where she went the distance to earn her 19th win on the season.
Oregon continued its winning ways on Friday by sweeping an afternoon doubleheader with a 4-1 in the opener and a 9-4 win in Game 2. In that 4-1 win, Yanez got the win in relief. It was her last decision and she finished the season with a 20-5 record.
Rachel Cid blew that second game of the doubleheader wide open with a 3-run homer in the sixth inning to give the Ducks an 8-3 lead. Raegan Breedlove came into the circle in relief and threw four scoreless frames to earn the win.
In the series and regular-season finale, all the scoring was over with after the first two innings. Both teams scored one run in the first and Oregon plated two more in the second and that was enough as the Ducks hung on for the 3-1 win.
Samaria Diaz threw three innings of one-hit ball to earn the win and Breedlove pitched a scoreless seventh inning to get her third save on the season.
Oregon’s four-game sweep over California ends the regular season as now the Ducks await their tourney fate.
Now comes the hard part.
The Oregon Ducks softball team completed a four-game road sweep at California Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 victory over the Bears. With the win, Oregon ended the regular season with a 37-15 overall record and 14-10 in Pac-12 play.
It was announced earlier that Jane Sanders Stadium would be one of 16 possible sites to host a softball regional and it’s now a near certainty with the Ducks’ success this season. The NCAA Softball Selection Show will be televised on ESPN tonight at 6 PST and Oregon will find out who the other three teams will be in the Eugene Regional.
Oregon hasn’t been in the tournament since 2017. That year they advanced all the way to the Women’s College World Series and finished 57-10 overall. It should be noted that the Ducks have never lost a Regional game at home.
Whether or not the Ducks would host a Super Regional is still in question as Oregon is on the bubble in that regard. The Top 8 teams host the Super and currently, the Ducks’ RPI is at 14. So barring a few upsets, Oregon would most likely have to win on the road in order to advance to Oklahoma City.
But the Ducks wouldn’t have been in such a good position to host a Regional if they had not defeated the teams they should beat, such as Cal this weekend.
Brooke Yanez got the weekend off with a good start with the 2-0 victory where she went the distance to earn her 19th win on the season.
Oregon continued its winning ways on Friday by sweeping an afternoon doubleheader with a 4-1 in the opener and a 9-4 win in Game 2. In that 4-1 win, Yanez got the win in relief. It was her last decision and she finished the season with a 20-5 record.
Rachel Cid blew that second game of the doubleheader wide open with a 3-run homer in the sixth inning to give the Ducks an 8-3 lead. Raegan Breedlove came into the circle in relief and threw four scoreless frames to earn the win.
In the series and regular-season finale, all the scoring was over with after the first two innings. Both teams scored one run in the first and Oregon plated two more in the second and that was enough as the Ducks hung on for the 3-1 win.
Samaria Diaz threw three innings of one-hit ball to earn the win and Breedlove pitched a scoreless seventh inning to get her third save on the season.
It was a tough weekend for both the Ducks baseball and softball teams as they both suffered road series losses after hot starts.
The majority of Oregon Ducks fans were focused on two things this weekend: The Spring Game, and the 2021 NFL Draft. While those two things were going on, though, both the baseball and softball teams were on the road, taking part in a couple of series that could be pivotal down the road.
Just because our eyes weren’t directly on them doesn’t mean that we will ignore the outcomes. Here is a quick breakdown of what took place for both teams over the weekend.
Baseball Drops Series to Cougars
The trip up to the Palouse and Washington State started off with a bang but ended on a big fat thud for the Oregon Ducks this past weekend.
Coming off a series win over UCLA that saw the Ducks briefly take over first place in the Pac-12 and a sweep over San Jose State, Oregon was riding sky high before its three-game set with the Cougars.
That momentum carried itself into the first game with a dominating 13-0 win over WSU. Unfortunately, Robert Ahlstrom’s excellent start wasn’t repeated on Saturday or Sunday with losses of 11-1 and 11-6, respectively.
In that opener, the Ducks bats stayed alive and they knocked starter Brandon White around. Oregon forced WSU to yank him out in the third inning with five runs to go up 5-0 early. White was finally taken out in the fourth when he gave up a double and a walk to begin the fourth.
The Ducks eventually went up 7-0 before Aaron Zavala’s home run made it 9-0 in the sixth and then Kenyon Yovan put the game away with a three-run blast to make it 12-0 in the seventh.
Ahlstrom was dominating through seven innings, scattering six hits and striking out six to improve his record to 4-3 on the season.
But the Oregon offense was shut down in Game 2 when Cougar hurler threw 7 2/3 stellar innings, giving up just a run on four hits with six strikeouts. It just wasn’t Cullen Kafka’s night as he allowed four homers in the loss.
Hoping to still win the series on Sunday, the Ducks went with Brett Walker on the hill, but after being staked to an early 2-0 lead, Walker allowed three runs in three innings. Nico Tellache had his roughest outing of the season, giving up five runs and getting just one out before being pulled.
The Ducks are now 27-11 overall and 11-7 in conference play. Oregon will have a chance to rebound this weekend when it hosts Washington, a team that’s only 17-21 overall and 3-12 in conference action.
Eric Evans Photography
Softball drops series to No. 12 Arizona State
The story for the Oregon Ducks softball team was eerily similar, as they began with a nice victory at No. 12 Arizona State but then lost three straight down in the desert.
In Game 1 of the series, pitcher Brooke Yanez was given a 4-1 lead into the fourth, but three homers in that frame gave the Sun Devils a 5-4 advantage. Oregon didn’t get down on itself, however. The Ducks just got to work.
Allee Bunker’s blooper to right field scored Hannah Galey to tie the game up at 5-5. It stayed that way into extras when Mya Felder’s grounder was booted and she beat out the throw to allow Terra McGowen to score the eventual winning run in the 6-5 Oregon victory.
It was home run derby on Saturday as both teams traded three-run shots in the first inning. Hannah Delgado put the Ducks (31-13, 9-9) on the board with that homer for the 3-0 lead, but ASU broke away from a 5-4 lead in the sixth to go on to win 10-4. The nightcap featured two early homers from the Devils to gup 4-0 and Oregon couldn’t muster up enough offense and eventually went down 4-1.
Hoping to salvage a series split on Sunday, the Ducks turned to Yanez, but it wasn’t her day in the circle. Oregon scored four in the second, but ASU, like they did all weekend, put a crooked number on the scoreboard with a six-spot in the third. The Sun Devils built up a 9-4 lead before Oregon scored two in the seventh, but it wasn’t enough as the Ducks went down 9-6.
It doesn’t get any easier for the softball team as they will prepare to face off with No. 9 Arizona, who come in with a 33-8 overall record and 11-5 in conference play. The series opener at Jane Sanders Stadium will be televised by ESPN2 at 4 pm.
