Tag: oregon ducks baseball

Oregon Ducks Regional Preview: Eastern Illinois Panthers

Eastern Illinois was able to upset three higher seeded teams to win the OVC tournament and make its way into the Nashville Regional.

Playing must-win games might become a bit old for the Eastern Illinois Panthers baseball team.

After finishing fifth in the Ohio Valley Conference, EIU had to win three straight games, including a 6-5 win over regular-season champion Morehead State to win the conference tourney and earn a bid into the NCAA tournament.

The Panthers reward for the upset? A date with the No. 6 national seed Vanderbilt Commodores in Nashville. But considering their season was on the brink, Eastern Illinois would have welcomed playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field if it meant continuing the season.

EIU enters the NCAA Tournament with a 38-19 overall record and the 38 wins ranking as the most in program history. EIU’s previous two trips to the NCAA Tournament were in 1999 at the Waco Regional (hosted by Baylor) and 2008 at the Lincoln Regional (hosted by Nebraska). The Panthers are 1-4 all-time in the tourney.

Eastern Illinois placed three players on the Ohio Valley Conference first team this year with utility player Ryan Ignoffo (.336, 15 homers, 59 runs batted in), starting pitcher Ky Hampton (7-2, 4.33 earned run average) and closer Zane Robbins (seven saves, 1.38 ERA).

Ignoffo also pitches and was named as one of the top 5 two-way players in the country with his 4.71 ERA and four saves.

The Panthers and Commodores play Friday at 4 pm PST and will be live on the SEC Network.

Oregon Ducks Regional Preview: Xavier Musketeers

Xavier has rebounded nicely after a slow start to its baseball season to earn the 3-seed of the Nashville Regional.

On Feb. 23, being in a regional, any regional, would have seemed far-fetched for the Xavier Musketeers baseball team.

The team sat at 0-5 after a four-game sweep at Oregon and a loss at Lousiville. After that, the Musketeers went a robust 37-18 for the season to earn a 3-seed for the regional.

The Musketeers finished second in the Big East with a 14-7 conference record and had to beat regular-season champion UConn three times to win the conference tournament.

Like the Ducks, Xavier doesn’t exactly play station-to-station baseball. It likes to hit the ball a long way and the Musketeers will be looking to do just that in Nashville.

As a team, Xavier has hit 88 home runs this year. In comparison, Oregon has hit one more homer for a program record of 89. But the Ducks do put the ball in play more often. The Ducks have a team batting average of an even .300, while the Musketeers come in hitting .278.

Matthew Deprey and Jared Cushing both lead Xavier with 14 homers a piece. Both are also hitting .286 for the season. Their leading hitter is Andrew Walker with a .329 average, seven home runs and he leads the team with 53 runs batted in.

Xavier has used a weekend rotation of Ethan Bosacker, Brent Alazaus and Luke Hoskins. Odds are the Musketeers will go with Bosacker to go against the Ducks with his 7-4 record and 3.83 earned run average. He started on opening day and was outstanding at PK Park. Bosacker went seven innings, giving up just one run on a grand total of two hits and he struck out six.

Oregon and Xavier will begin the Nashville Regional at 10 am PST on ESPN+.

NCAA goes for history by sending Oregon to the Nashville Regional

For the second time in nearly a decade, Oregon baseball will make its way to Nashville to play in NCAA tournament regional action.

We’ve been here before, correct?

The NCAA baseball tournament committee is sending Oregon to the Nashville Regional where the 2-seeded Ducks will open up with 3-seed Xavier.

The Ducks have been to Nashville before. It was the 2014 season when Oregon was bounced out by the host Commodores.

Way back in February, it was the Ducks and Musketeers meeting in the opening series of the season at PK Park where the Ducks swept the four-game series.

Host Vanderbilt and Eastern Illinois make up the rest of the regional, which begins Friday on ESPN+.

Vandy is the National 6-seed with a record of 41-18 and won the SEC tournament. Eastern Illinois comes into the regional 38-19 and they also won their conference tournament.

Xavier rebounded nicely after that early trip to Eugene and finished 37-23 on the season.

Half of the regional sites belong to SEC schools with 8-seeded Stanford being the only West Coast team to host. Oregon State was sent to the Baton Rouge Regional (LSU) and will play Sam Houston State.

Washington was sent to the Stillwater Regional (Oklahoma State) and will open the tourney with Dallas Baptist.

Should Oregon and Washington win their regional, the Ducks and Huskies would meet in a Super Regional with a trip to Omaha on the line.

Arizona was on the bubble and after a good May that included making the Pac-12 tournament final before losing to the Ducks, was rewarded with a Fayetteville Regional (Arkansas) appearance. The Wildcats will face TCU.

Oregon edges out Arizona to win Pac-12 tournament title

Key defensive plays and big hits propelled Oregon past Arizona 5-4 to win the Pac-12 tournament.

This hasn’t happened since 1954.

Oregon baseball won its first conference championship, regular season or tournament, with a 5-4 win over Arizona at Scottsdale Stadium in front of a partisan Wildcat crowd.

Matt Dallas managed to get the last six outs to seal the deal and clinch the conference’s automatic berth into the NCAA tournament. Oregon’s seed and regional location will be announced on Monday.

But the Ducks certainly made things interesting in the top of the ninth. Arizona was able to get its top hitter, Chase Davis, up to the plate with two outs and a runner on. Dallas was able to get Davis to pop out to Bryce Boettcher in left to end the game and send the Duck bench out onto the field for a dogpile on the mound.

This was a close game throughout and relatively low-scoring as this tournament and the stadium is made for an offensive showcase. The Oregon pitching staff was up to the task.

Starting Turner Spoljarik was coming off a disastrous outing on Thursday against Stanford where he lasted just one inning. But the good Spoljarik, the one that was the Pitcher of the Week in the last series against Utah, showed himself right in time.

The freshman went six innings, giving up three runs on seven hits and striking out three. The Duck defense also turned three double plays behind Spoljarik to erase potential big innings.

Austin Anderson came on in the seventh inning and found himself in a world of hurt as Arizona was able to load the bases with two out. With the potential tying and go-ahead runs on base, Anderson whiffed Kiko Romero with a changeup in the dirt.

After the Wildcats dented the scoreboard first with a run in the third, Oregon evened the score in the bottom half thanks to Colby Shade’s run-scoring single. Oregon took a 3-1 lead in the fourth on Gavin Grant’s single to right and Rikuu Nishida’s infield chopper.

Arizona wasn’t going to go quietly, however. It scored a run in the fifth and then tied the game in the sixth on Romero’s inside-the-park-homer to dead center.

As they seemingly have all season, the Duck immediately responded. This time it came as a monster homer to right-center off of the bat of Jacob Walsh. Oregon gained some insurance in the seventh on Tanner Smith’s single to center which was just enough to score Drew Cowley from second.

Tony Bullard made it 5-4 in the eighth with a homer, but it was just a solo shot because the Ducks turned a key double play just before the home run.

Now the Ducks fly home to Eugene with a trophy in hand to await their NCAA tournament fate. The Field of 64 will be announced on Monday at 9 am PST on ESPN2.

According to projections from D1Baseball.com, the Ducks could be sent to Gainesville, Flor. where the No. 2 Gators will host.

But that was before Oregon was crowned Pac-12 champs.

Oregon-Arizona final has questions that need to be answered tonight

Questions will be answered tonight as Oregon plays Arizona for the Pac-12 tournament title.

Raise your hand if you expected an Oregon-Arizona final in the Pac-12 baseball tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz.

There would most likely be very few hands raised because these two teams weren’t exactly hitting on all cylinders coming into this tourney. Oregon was a 6-seed and Arizona was an 8-seed for a reason.

The Ducks were losers of five of their last seven, including being swept at home by Washington, the team they just defeated 12-7 in the semifinals. If Oregon hadn’t won its last two games over last-place Utah, this might be a very different article.

As for the Wildcats, they entered the Pac-12 tournament with a losing conference record of 12-18. But with the way they have pounded the baseball over the course of this week, that record probably should be flipped to 18-12.

Arizona had a tough month of April with the month ending with a sweep to the Beavers in Corvallis. But once the calendar flipped over and the weather became warmer, the Wildcats’ bats heated up at well. That 21-20 win at Stanford should have been an indication of what the Wildcats had in store for the tournament.

They’ve scored in double figures in each of the Wildcats’ three games, including the 14-4 win over the Cardinal in the semifinals.

Oregon and Arizona are not strangers to one another. The Ducks went down to Tucson in early April and swept away the Wildcats. Jacob Walsh earned Pac-12 Player of the Week after that series.

But these two teams are very different now than they were almost two months ago. Here are a few things to look out for in tonight’s title game.

 

Ducks advance to Pac-12 finals with big victory over Washington

Oregon defeats rival Washington 12-7 to advance to the Pac-12 tournament final where the Ducks will play either Stanford or Arizona.

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.

Ducks stun Stanford to reach Pac-12 tournament semifinals

Oregon scores two in the ninth and two in the 10th to stun No. 1 seed Stanford and reach the conference semifinal where the Huskies await.

Bring on the Dawgs.

Oregon scored two in the ninth and two more in the 10th inning to stun No. 1 seed Stanford 8-6 to advance to the Pac-12 tournament semifinals where Washington awaits.

The Ducks officially win Pool A and will face the Huskies Friday afternoon at 2:30 pm PST and it will be televised on the Pac-12 Network.

But to think Oregon would be in the position when it was down 6-3 in the eighth is almost unfathomable. The Ducks scored a single run in the eighth and another one in the ninth and it was 6-5, no one on base and two outs.

Then things got a bit nutty.

Colby Shade ripped a line down the right field line that was just out of the reach of Braden Montgomery. Not only was it out of his reach, but the ball didn’t hop the fence and was still in play. Montgomery’s throw was perfect to the relay man Drew Bowser, who turned and airmailed the ball into the camera well, sending Shade home to tie the game.

Closer Josh Mollerus sent the game into extra innings with a scoreless ninth innings, but not before coaxing Owen Cobb to ground out with runners on second and third.

Sabin Ceballos was due up in the 10th inning for the Ducks, and boy was he due.

Ceballos might have hit the biggest home run of his life off Cardinal reliever Brandt Pancer. It was an absolute shot to left-center to give Oregon the 7-6 lead.

But the Ducks weren’t done.

After three straight walks with two out, Toran O’Harran uncorked a wild pitch that scored Jacob Walsh.

Mollerus stayed in the game in the extra frame and after a bit of a scare that saw Stanford bring the game-winning run to the plate in the form of Alberto Rios, the Duck closer managed to get the Pac-12 Player of the Year to fly out to center to end the game.

Coming into the game, Oregon’s RPI was in the low 30s, and with this win, that number will go down even further and increasing the chances of hosting a regional in Eugene. But the Ducks would most likely need to win the conference tourney and defeat the Cardinal a second time in the process.

First things first, however. Oregon needs to beat Washington, a team that came to PK Park and swept the Ducks three straight just two short weeks ago.

Stanford will play Arizona at 7 pm in the other semifinal.

Late rally propels Ducks to Pac-12 tourney win over California

Oregon scores two runs in the bottom of the eighth to defeat California 3-2 in its first game of the Pac-12 tournament.

It was just a matter of time before the Oregon bats would break through.

Thankfully for the Ducks’ sake, they broke through just in time.

Oregon scored two runs in the bottom of the eighth to defeat California 3-2 in its first game of the Pac-12 tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz. Tuesday night.

With the Pool A win, the Ducks are scheduled to play the conference’s regular season champion Stanford Thursday night.

Down 2-1 for most of the night, the Ducks finally capitalized on a rally. Sabin Caballos began the eighth inning with a single and after Bryce Boettcher came in to run for him, Tanner Smith doubled to right-center that was just beyond the glove of Cal’s Kade Kretzschmar to put runners on second and third.

Now Oregon was in this position four times before this, but couldn’t come up with the big hit.

This time the Ducks came through.

Drew Smith’s grounder was just enough to score Boettcher to tie the game and Jacob Walsh’s sacrifice fly scored Smith for the eventual game-winning run.

Closer Josh Mollerus came in the ninth and earned the save with a game-ending double play. California left its best hitter, Max Handron, on deck.

Handron led the game off with a 430-foot triple that went off the center field wall. When he crushed that first pitch, a 3-2 game was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

But Oregon used its six pitchers to perfection and held the Bears to just two runs on six hits and scoreless for the final seven innings of play.

The win was also Oregon’s first-ever victory of the conference tournament, which came into existence last season. The Ducks lost two straight and were bounced out early.

Now Oregon has a chance to make some noise should they upset the No. 1-seeded Cardinal Thursday night.

Seven Ducks receive all-conference baseball honors

Seven Oregon baseball players were honored by the Pac-12 Tuesday morning right before the postseason gets going.

On the day the Pac-12 baseball tournament begins, the conference announced their all-league selections and seven Oregon players were so honored.

Duck third baseman Sabin Ceballos, shortstop Drew Cowley and starting pitcher Jace Stoffal were on the all-conference team with centerfielder Colby Shade was named to the all-defensive squad.

Ceballos, a junior college transfer from Houston, sparkled in 2023 by hitting .349 with 13 home runs and 54 runs batted in.

Cowley led the Ducks with 15 homers and 60 RBIs while hitting .340. He also led the team with 70 hits, 19 doubles, 54 runs scored and two triples.

Stoffal was the ace pitcher for much of the season before suffering an injury. He finished the regular season with a 6-2 record and a 2.82 earned run average. Oregon hopes to have Stoffal’s services back for the postseason.

Closer Josh Mollerus, right fielder Rikuu Nishida, left fielder Tanner Smith and Shade were honorable mentions.

Stanford cleaned up on the awards as Albert Rios was the Player of the Year, Quinn Mathews was the Pitcher of the Year, Malcolm Moore the Freshman of the Year and finally David Esquer was the Coach of the Year.

The postseason begins today with the Pac-12 tournament starting in Scottsdale, Ariz. Oregon opens up pool play with California at 7 pm. The Ducks will then face conference champ Stanford on Thursday.

Duck baseball end regular season with series win at Utah

Oregon baseball ended the regular season with a big 15-3 win at Utah to take the series on the road.

Just two days ago, a lot of surrounding the Oregon Ducks baseball program was looking bleak with a five-game losing streak hanging over it.

Two straight wins to end the regular season erased all of that.

Oregon garnered wins over Utah on Friday and Saturday to take the series in Salt Lake City and finish with a 16-14 conference record and 33-20 overall. The Ducks will now look to the Pac-12 tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz. this coming week to bolster their NCAA tourney resume.

That losing streak, which saw the Ducks give up double digits in each loss, reached five with a 12-5 loss to the Utes, a team that didn’t qualify for the conference tournament.

Thankfully for Oregon, the ship was righted on Friday morning as starting pitcher turned in the most important outing of the season. He went seven innings, allowed just one run on five hits as the Ducks took the 9-1 win.

With ace pitcher Jace Stoffal sidelined with an injury, the Ducks have had a hard time finding consistant pitching, but Spoljarik’s start on Friday seemed to be a turning point in the season.

Oregon rode that momentum Saturday morning with a huge 15-3 win to end the regular season. Rikuu Nishida was a homer away from the cycle, Drew Cowley homered and Bennett Thompson added four hits.

On the mound, Matthrew Grabmann followed Spoljarik’s start with a stellar outing of his own, going six inning, allowing two runs and five hits.

Now the Ducks head south to the desert with the conference tournament beginning on Tuesday.