At varying points Oregon was outplaying Oregon State in all three phases of the game during Saturday’s softball doubleheader in Corvallis.
The Ducks played spectacular defense all day, while the Beavers committed four errors in the opening game, a 10-4 Oregon win before a standing-room-only crowd at Kelly Field. UO also got stronger performances from its pitchers and offensively it had some timely hits and capitalized on several OSU mistakes, including a bases-loaded walk and wild pitch that allowed the lone runs to score in a 2-0 Oregon win in Game 2, which was considerably colder and windier and sent many fans home early.
“I thought our pitching did a great job today,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “We needed our pitching to pull through. We hit a lot of hard balls today that didn’t go out and I think the score could’ve looked a little different, so I love what our pitching did. I love what our two starters did and I love how (Raegan Breedlove) came in for relief for both.
In the first game, Allee Bunker went 4 for 4 with a double and four RBIs and Kedre Luschar went 3 for 4 with a triple and two RBIs for No. 18 Oregon (22-10, 5-6 Pac-12), which extended its win streak to seven in the rivalry series.
“I saw the ball big today and it felt really good to be able to do that for my team and help to get the series,” Luschar said. “I think trusting the process, trusting what (assistant coach Sam) Marder’s been doing with us, trusting the outside pitch — I’ve been struggling with that.”
The Ducks struck quickly as Hanna Delgado reached on an error, Terra McGowan walked and Bunker drove them in on a double in the first. Oregon added to its lead with a sacrifice fly by McGowan in the second and Luschar, who entered the day 1 for 8 in Pac-12 play, tripled to left-center to make it 4-0 in the third.
Morgan Scott induced a double play to negate a leadoff walk in the bottom of the inning, but a hit batter and double brought up Frankie Hammoude with two on and she belted a 1-2 pitch over the wall in left to get Oregon State within 4-3.
Oregon got two of the runs back in the fourth via an error and single by Luschar.
Hammoude added an RBI double in the fifth as Oregon State (10-20-1, 1-9-1) got within 6-4. Scott (6-4) allowed four runs on seven hits, two walks and a hit batter and struck out two over 5.0 innings for Oregon, which added four runs in the seventh thanks to another error and two-run single by Bunker.
“I wouldn’t say I was seeing it the greatest considering I had a couple of dinky little hits,” Bunker said. “That’s just the game of softball; some days even if you’re not feeling your greatest you still find a way to get it done. If you beat it into the ground, run like hell to first base because you might just beat it out.”
Tarni Stepto allowed 10 runs, five earned, on 10 hits, six walks and a hit batter and struck out nine in a complete game for OSU.
Raegan Breedlove allowed two hits over 2.0 scoreless innings of relief to earn her first of two saves of the day.
But other than Bunker and Luschar, who had all five of Oregon’s five hits with runners in scoring position (5 for 23), the rest of UO’s lineup combined for just three hits and the Ducks stranded 11 runners on base. It was the third consecutive game the Ducks left at least 10 on base.
There were also a pair of baserunning miscues, with Alyssa Daniell attempting to score from second on Luschar’s infield single in the fourth but getting thrown out by several steps and pinch runner Remmington Hewitt being doubled off second on a line out in the fifth.
“We had a couple spots where we took ourselves out of innings and we can’t do that,” Lombardi said. “We got to stay clean with what we’re doing. … We’re doing a good job of getting people on, we just got to continue to clutch up. That’s the name of the game. We’ve got runners in scoring position, we got to clutch up.”
The second game was a pitching duel that was determined by a two-out walk and wild pitch in the third.
Those were preceded by an infield single by Delgado to load the bases, but Ellie Garcia didn’t allow another hit, taking the loss while giving up the infield single, four walks and a hit batter in a complete game.
Oregon State threatened in the fourth with a two-out double by Kaiea Higa and single by Eliana Gottlieb, but Stevie Hansen got a popout to end the threat. Hansen breezed through the fifth and sixth thanks in part to her defense, particularly from Bunker, who made tricky deflected ground balls look like easy putouts. Shortstop Paige Sinicki had a spectacular diving stop and glove-to-glove flip to Bunker earlier in the day.
“I think it’s kind of an expectation at this point,” Bunker said. “As you see, we get a little less excited for them, which we need to still celebrate them but they’re kind of expected.”
Higa led off the bottom of the seventh with a double and Hansen (6.1 IP, four hits, two walks, three strikeouts) issued a one-out walk before getting the hook for Breedlove, who threw a wild pitch to put the tying run in scoring position but got a groundout to third and flyout to right to close it out.
“What we did was enough today,” Lombardi said. “We put two runs on the board and our defense held us and our pitching held us.”
The teams will wrap up the series at 3 p.m. Sunday.
