English
Español
The Oregon Ducks left the friendly confines of Eugene Oregon PK Park for their first road trip of the season to the Live Like Lou Las Vegas College Baseball Classic where they would be taking on their first real competition of the year. First up was old PAC-12 rival Arizona on Friday Night.
Coach Waz gave the start on the mound to Will Sanford in 11 IP over the first two weekends Sanford did not surrender a run to either George Mason or Youngstown State, but Arizona would offer a different level of competition than Oregon’s first two opponents. Waz’s full lineup was the following:
After Arizona was able to get runners on the corner in the opening frame Sanford was able to keep the Wildcats off the board thanks to a pair of strikeouts including this one to end the inning.
In Oregon’s half the Ducks were able to strike first and get an early 1-0 lead thanks to a solo homerun from Jax Gimenez for his first career home run
It didn’t take long for the Ducks to add to their lead as in the next inning Drew Smith was able to hit a triple into the gap which was followed by a Burke-Lee Mabeus RBI single and it was 2-0 Ducks. That was followed up by a Ryan Cooney 2 run home run and the Ducks were in early control of this one.
While the Ducks offence was humming early Will Sanford continued to cruise as he was able to hold Arizona off the board through 3 innings with 6 strikeouts allowing 1 hit and 1 walk.
In the 4th inning though Sanford would run into some trouble. With runners on 1st and 2nd and two outs Arizona hit a routine pop-up into the infield that was dropped and chaos ensued. Both Arizona runners were able to score unearned and the Wildcats had cut the Duck lead in half. Despite the runners scoring unearned coach Waz decided to make a pitching change to get out of the inning and end the Arizona rally. He turned things over to sophomore right hander Tanner Bradley who was able to get a strikeout to end the inning.
In the bottom half of the 4th the Ducks had the opportunity to restore their 4 run lead as they were able to load the bases for Gabe Miranda. Miranda put decent contact on the ball but just missed his spot slightly and he would fly out to Center field to end the inning.
Tanner Bradley picked up where he left off in the 4th inning striking out two more Arizona batters in the top of the 5th
Oregon’s offence in the 3rd would threaten again thanks to a Maddox Molony lead off single followed by a Burke Lee Mabeus double to right center and the Ducks had runners on 2nd and 3rd with only one out to set things up for Angel Laya who crushed a ball out to right field for a massive hit to give the Ducks a 5 run lead and make it 7-2.
That would be more then enough on this evening as Tanner Bradley kept on dealing holding Arizona off the board in the 6th, 7th, and 8th. Bradley’s final line was 4.1 IP 0 ER 3 hits allowed 1 Walk and 9Ks and he appears to be another arm out of the Bullpen coach Waz can rely on to get outs. Ryan Featherstone came into the game in the 9th and struck out the side to cap of the Ducks best win of the season.
With the Victory the Ducks move to 9-0 on the season and they will look to stay undefeated with games against UC Irvine and then Vanderbilt to finish out the weekend.
Here is coach Waz and Ryan Cooeny post game: