Oregon has spoken of taking a “postseason mentality” all season. Now the time has formally arrived for the Ducks to put that to the test.
The No. 2 seed in the Fayetteville Regional, Oregon opens NCAA Tournament play against Notre Dame Friday afternoon (2 p.m., ESPN2) at Bogle Park. It’s the second year in a row Oregon is playing at Arkansas for regional play and it considers the familiarity with the setting an advantage entering the double-elimination tournament.
“I think the trick with postseason is it can get a little bit too big at times,” second baseman Allee Bunker said. “So the reason why we wanted to start that mentality early is so that we didn’t have to change anything when we got to postseason. That’s definitely the message for our team this weekend, is keep playing the way we know how to play softball. We’ve proven that we can beat great teams. So continue to play that way and don’t try to be too big or change anything.”
Both the Ducks (35-15) and Fighting Irish (29-17-1) enter the regional on four-game losing streaks, which will put the winner in a significantly different place mentally entering Saturday compared to the loser having their season on the line immediately.
Starting off in the winner’s bracket is a significant advantage, perhaps even more so this year with the No. 11 seed Razorbacks playing in the second game Friday night against Harvard.
“With any regional regardless of where you play it’s all about your first game,” Oregon coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “… To me once you get to postseason records are out the window. It really doesn’t matter if you’ve won your last four or lost your last four. It’s about you’re in postseason. The parity that’s in softball now, it’s incredible, anybody can beat anybody on any given day. For us our biggest thing is to continue to be focused on them and but also to have a faceless opponent.”
The Ducks went 2-2 in last year’s regional, with wins over Wichita State and losses to Arkansas. In 2021, UO opened the Austin Regional with a loss to Texas State before staving off elimination three times to force a deciding game in the regional final against Texas.
“I think the biggest difference for us was that we were a young team in that (Austin) Regional, not any of us had been to postseason in the first one,” catcher Terra McGowan said. “Coming into Year 3 we’ve been talking about postseason mentality all year; getting the first game is obviously important but as long as you have outs there’s game left to play, there’s always a chance.
“We’d love to get the first game but I don’t think our mentality shifts either way.”
