Oregon State’s Ellie Garcia threw the best game of her career, limiting No. 18 Oregon to two hits in a shutout that was by far the best win of the season for the Beavers and the worst loss of the season for the Ducks.
Garcia struck out four and hit a batter over 7.0 innings, most impressively inducing nine flyouts against an Oregon lineup that was constructed for speed and putting the ball on the ground in a 4-0 win for the Beavers Sunday afternoon at Kelly Field.
The OSU sophomore right-hander, who entered the weekend with a 5.79 ERA, retired the first 13 UO hitters in order to extend her dominance from Saturday, when she allowed just one hit in a 2-0 loss.
“I was focusing on spinning the ball and using my defense,” Garcia said. “I was able to get a lot of popups, so letting my defense work and keep making plays for me. I know that they’ve seen me, but spinning the ball and hitting my spots and I think that worked really well for me.
“I wanted to play with their eyes, so keeping the ball up — we played out a little bit more and off-speed so I think that helped me as well.”
Unlike Saturday, the Beavers (11-20-1, 2-9-1 Pac-12) gave Garcia run support, made all of its plays defensively and capitalized on an array of defensive miscues by the normally sure-handed Ducks.
With two on and two out, OSU No. 9 hitter Erin Mendoza hit a routine grounder to short that UO’s Paige Sinicki booted in what was initially called an error but later ruled an RBI single.
A series of blunders proved costly for Oregon (22-11, 5-7) in the third.
First baseman KK Humphreys dropped the ball on what would’ve been a routine 4-3 putout. Frankie Hammoude blasted a fly ball to right that was catchable, but went off of Kedre Luschar’s glove to put two on. Then a grounder to third that could’ve resulted in a double play and no less than the lead runner being out ended with runners on the corners and one out because Tehya Bird tagged the lead runner with her empty glove rather than with the ball.
Eliana Gottlieb followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0.
Raegan Breedlove (2-3) allowed two runs, one earned, on three hits and a walk and struck out one over 2.2 innings for Oregon.
Alyssa Daniell broke up Garcia’s no-hitter with a one-out grounder through the right side in the fifth but Oregon didn’t so much as get the runner into scoring position.
“I think we didn’t do enough on defense, at the plate and on the mound to get the win today,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “Continuing to swing out of the zone. I felt like we let too many pitches go by that were in the zone and swung at too many pitches out of the zone. … Too many balls in the air. Today and yesterday the ball was not going out of the park and too many balls in the air. We’ve got to be able to make the adjustment and put the ball on the ground.”
Abby Doerr led off the bottom with a home run to left center to make it 3-0.
Oregon’s Kai Luschar dropped a bunt single to open the sixth but it went for naught as Sinicki followed with a bunt that turned into a 5-4-2 double play.
Oregon State got runners on second and third with two outs in the sixth and a Stevie Hansen pitch got away from catcher Terra McGowan and another run scored.
Hansen allowed two runs on two hits and two walks and struck out three over 3.1 innings.
Garcia (2-6), who transferred from Nevada, closed out her first career shutout with three more fly outs in the seventh.
It snapped OSU’s seven-game losing streak in the series, dating back exactly two years, and was its first over an RPI top 25 team this season (1-5).
“A win is a win and it’s good for these guys to get a W,” Oregon State coach Laura Berg said. “We’ve struggled a bit this year. It’s nice when it’s against your in-state rival. I’m really proud of them; they battled and competed every pitch, every (at-bat).”
Though Oregon won a Pac-12 series for the first time this season, dropping the finale to last-place Oregon State will damage its RPI (13) and could potentially cost the Ducks the chance to host an NCAA Regional. It was UO’s first loss outside the RPI top 50 this season.
“We need to be able to execute; we didn’t execute today,” Lombardi said. “I think we’re much better than what we showed. I thought OSU played a tough game, they came out ready to play and they did what they needed to do to get it done. I think for us, we didn’t do enough.
“Every game you’ve got to go out and play and be ready to play and win. Anybody in this league can beat anybody on any given day. You’ve got to be able to show up and get it done every time you step out on the field and I think we didn’t do that today.”
