Tag: santa barbara regional

Oregon baseball given overwhelming odds to win Santa Barbara Regional

The Oregon Ducks have overwhelming odds to win the Santa Barbara regional and advance to the Super Regionals.

The Oregon Ducks baseball team defied odds so far and won their first two games in the Santa Barbara Regional, beating San Diego and Santa Barbara in dramatic fashion to advance to the Regional Final.

On Friday afternoon, center fielder Bryce Boettcher hit a go-ahead homerun in the top of the 11th inning to send the Tritons into the loser’s bracket, and then a dominant pitching performance on Saturday night let Oregon squeak past the Gauchos.

Now, the Ducks will face a rematch against one of the two teams in the final on Sunday night, and according to the latest simulation odds from college sports analyst Parker Fleming, they have an overwhelming chance to get to the super regionals.

As a result of winning their first two games, the Ducks are in an advantageous position, as they can still lose a game and stay alive thanks to the double-elimination nature of the tournament. However, it will only take one win on Sunday night to advance to the Super Regionals.

San Diego and Santa Barbara play at noon on ESPNU, and the winner will go on to face Oregon in the regional final at 6 p.m. Should the Ducks lose that game, the final will take place on Monday.

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Ducks outlast San Diego 5-4 in 11 innings to advance in NCAA tourney

Bryce Boettcher’s 11th-inning home run propels Oregon to a 5-4 win over San Diego in the Santa Barbara regional.

The Oregon Ducks baseball team put the saying “survive and advance” to its limit Friday afternoon.

They watched a 4-1 eighth inning lead evaporate with one swing of the bat, then hold on with runners on the corners with one out in the 11th inning to eventually hold on and defeat San Diego 5-4 in the Santa Barbara regional.

With the win, the 3-seeded Ducks will play the winner of the UCSB-Fresno State game to be played later on Friday.

This wasn’t what coach Mark Wasikowski would have drawn up in order to advance to the winner’s bracket, but a win is a win and the Ducks will happily take it.

Lost in the late-game hoopla was the effort of starting pitcher RJ Gordon, who pitched his best game of the season. He went 7+ innings, allowing three runs on six hits, struck out three and walked four. He led his defense behind him make the plays and left throwing 115 pitched.

But Gordon ran out of gas in the eighth as he allowed the first two Toreros on before the Ducks went to the bullpen. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Brock Moore’s day as he gave up a game-tying three-run homer to San Diego’s best hitter Jakob Christian.

It was back to the bullpen where the Ducks went to Logan Mercado and that was ultimately the right call. The senior closer went the rest of the way, not allowing the Toreros to score in the next four innings to earn the win.

Oregon would eventually pull ahead in the 11th on a Bryce Boettcher blast down the left field line to give the Ducks the 5-4 lead and win.

The Ducks never trailed in the game as Carter Garate got the scoring off to a start with his fourth homer of the season, a 423-foot bomb to right-center field in the fifth.

After San Diego tied the game in the bottom half of the inning, Oregon managed to score on a Maddox Molony fielder’s choice and a safety squeeze pulled off perfectly by Garate. The Ducks made it 4-1 on Garate’s third hit, a double that went to the wall that scored Drew Smith all the way from first base.

Oregon will next play Saturday night at 7 pm PST on one of the ESPN networks.