After soaring into a green and yellow dogpile on the Scottsdale Stadium infield, slipping on a championship t-shirt and posing for a barrage of pictures, Jacob Walsh promised that the best was yet to come for the Oregon Ducks.
“This is definitely a good start,” he said. “But we’re not finished now. We have more work to do.”
Oregon’s magical run in the Pac-12 baseball tournament ended with an improbable championship Saturday night, when it edged the Arizona Wildcats 5-4 in the title game in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The team that went 9-11 over the final 20 games of the regular season — including 3-7 in May — caught fire in the desert, showcasing a mix of guts, resolve and stamina to shock the talented nine-team field. The sixth-seeded Ducks overcame a shorthanded pitching staff, outlasted multiple late-game deficits and persevered through four do-or-die games, winning its first conference tournament title and earning an automatic berth to the NCAA Baseball Tournament.
“The guys just played their hearts out,” Oregon coach Mark Wasikowski said. “Those guys are just grinders and they wanted it.”
After escaping pool play with a pair of comeback victories and bashing their way through the semifinals, the Ducks played a clean, crisp and efficient game in the championship.
Freshman right-hander Turner Spoljaric (6-0) pitched the game of his life, the Ducks’ dead-tired bullpen had another clutch performance and the lineup did just enough to cool down the red-hot Wildcats, who had scored 39 runs in the first three games of the tournament.
Spoljaric set the tone from the first inning, breezing through the top of the potent Arizona lineup in just 11 pitches, and he only grew stronger from there. Two days after getting shellacked by Stanford, Spoljaric kept the Wildcats off-balance with four pitches and worked out of jams effectively over six inspiring innings. He wasn’t overpowering — Arizona had seven hits against him, including an inside-the-park home run in the sixth— but Spoljaric was smart and savvy. He allowed three runs, recorded three strikeouts and did not surrender a walk, while throwing 60 of his 87 pitches for strikes.
Spoljaric learned he would be starting on Friday, when pitching coach Jake Angier approached him in the team hotel and asked how his arm felt after throwing 24 pitches — and allowing six runs on seven hits — during one fateful inning of work Thursday against Stanford. The conversation was brief.
“I said, ‘I’m good. I want the ball. I want another chance to come compete for this team and give us a chance here,’” Spoljaric said. “I asked to start and he’s like, ‘Absolutely. If you’re good and you’re going to go out there and compete, I’ll let you.’ I said, ‘I’m going to give you my best effort.’”
The Ducks’ defensive was exceptional behind him, turning three crucial double plays to escape jams, and offense came from all over the lineup. Eight of Oregon’s nine starters recorded a hit and the Ducks scored in four different innings. Colby Shade produced their first run in the third, slashing a clutch, two-out, two-strike single to right to score Rikuu Nishida. An inning later, the Ducks dinked and doinked their way to two more runs, using a couple of flares by Drew Smith and Gavin Grant, a single by Jacob Walsh and a swinging bunt single by Nishida to snatch a 3-1 lead.
They never trailed again.
Walsh belted a deep home run onto the hill in right-center field in the sixth and Tanner Smith singled home a run in the seventh, giving the Ducks (37-20) all the cushion they would need.
The bullpen, Oregon’s collective tournament MVP, took over from there, as Austin Anderson and Matt Dallas closed out the victory. Ducks relievers pitched 24 1/3 innings in the tournament, allowing just three and recording 21 strikeouts.
“Huge,” Dallas said, describing the bullpen’s performance. “Just huge. Contributions from everybody. Stepping up in big moments. We were ready, man, for whatever the game called for. We were ready for it as a staff.”
And the staff had to be ready repeatedly in the final innings against No. 8 seed Arizona (33-24).
The Wildcats tied the game at 3-3 in the sixth, when Kiko Romero hit an inside-the-park homer to left-center. They crept to within 5-4 in the eighth, when Tony Bullard blasted a solo home run into the bullpen in left field. And they put the tying run on base — and sent tournament MVP Chase Davis — to the plate with two outs in the ninth. But Davis, who produced two home runs and 12 RBIs in the first three games in Scottsdale, hit a lazy fly ball to left field to end the game.
It sent the Ducks’ screaming out of the first base dugout and ended with a mammoth dogpile on the infield near third base. Nishida, the spunky, happy-go-lucky spark plug from Japan, bounced around leaping into teammates’ arms. Tanner Smith, Drew Cowley and Grant, the three senior leaders who live in an apartment together in Eugene, shared a celebratory hug. And Wasikowski, the steely-eyed, no-nonsense coach, was doused with a Gatorade ice bucket as he conducted a postgame television interview.
“This is kind of something we’ve talked about in our apartment for over a year now,” Smith said, holding back tears. “It finally came to fruition. It’s so special just to have people and players who are not just talented baseball, but kids with good hearts and unbelievable character.”
The Ducks arrived in Scottsdale reeling from a late-season collapse, featuring a pair of injured starting pitchers and a shorthanded bullpen, and chasing two wins to clinch an at-large berth into the NCAA tournament.
But after Oregon rallied in the eighth inning to beat Cal in the pool player opener Tuesday night, Walsh upped the ant, promising during a postgame television interview that there would something special coming from the Ducks in Scottsdale.
“We’re here to win the tournament,” he said.
Four nights later, after he and Oregon backed up the pledge, it’s clear the work isn’t done.
“If we can just stick with the same perspective we’ve been having with our backs against the wall,” Smith said. “And just keep pushing and keep grinding, now that we got a little taste of success, I think (we’re) going to want a little more.”
Joe Freeman reported from Scottsdale, Arizona.
— Joe Freeman | jfreeman@oregonian.com | 503-294-5183 | @BlazerFreeman | Subscribe to The Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
