Duck's Baseball Wins Series Over Washington Huskies
Photo by: Stephanie Lovell/DuckTv
The Oregon Ducks hosted the Washington Huskies over the weekend, without coach George Horton for the first two games of the series. In the first game Cole Irvin continued to struggle, giving up four earned runs over five innings. The Duck’s relievers have been the most reliable part of Oregon’s roster this season. But, in the first game, the bullpen struggled, giving up six runs that were split into two apiece between Cooper Stiles, Stephen Nogosek, and Brac Warren. The final score was 10-4 in favor of the Huskies, and was the third of the last four games in which the Ducks gave up at least seven runs.
The Ducks bounced back in the second game of the series as Brandon Cuddy hit a go ahead, two RBI, double in the fourth inning. The bullpen bounced back after a shaky first game as Cooper Stiles pitched four scoreless innings of relief to give him a 4-1 record on the year. Nagosek provided a scoreless bridge to Garrett Cleavinger who locked down his sixth save of the season, despite giving up a solo homer in the ninth inning. The Ducks won the game, 4-3, and a major reason for that was Jakob Goldfarb who robbed a potential three-run homerun in the first inning.
The third and deciding game featured Josh Graham who made his first career start for the Ducks, and Joshua Fredenhall for the Huskies. Fredenhall entered the game undefeated on the year and pitched well for the Huskies giving up one run in four innings of work. The Ducks won in extra innings by a score of 3-2, but the loss wasn’t attributed to Fredenhall, so he stayed undefeated. This game also marked the return of coach George Horton for the Ducks. Horton was crucial for calling pitches for Graham, who posted a quality line of five innings pitched, three hits, one earned run and four strikeouts. The offensive star for the Ducks was Mitchell Tolman, who went 3-4 on the day, and also accounted for the tying run in the seventh inning.
The Ducks needed this series to keep its playoff dreams alive. The team has been better in the second half of the season, but their abysmal stretch at the start of conference play has really hurt the team’s chances. The Ducks are now even with the Huskies in the conference standings and the Ducks will likely need to pass both the Huskies and the Arizona Wildcats if they want a shot at the post-season. The Wildcats are three games ahead of the Ducks currently, but Oregon has a favorable schedule coming up with its next three series against the worst three teams in the pac-12. (Stanford, Washington St. and Utah) If Oregon hopes to make it to the playoffs, the team will have to claim each of these three series.
