Raucous, rowdy home crowd boosts Oregon baseball to Eugene Regional sweep

On a weekend when UCLA, Nebraska and Arizona State were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament, the Ducks dumped the Beavers 4-1 to go 3-0 at the Eugene Regional before a fired-up crowd at PK Park.

They'll advance to the Super Regional against Texas in Austin, their third in four years.

Oregon fans were jubilant. Dan Lanning attended with his son and he posted, "Ducks were electric tonight. Congrats to @Oregbaseball."

Winning pitcher Miles Gosztola, a junior transfer from Gonzaga, struck out eight in six innings while holding the Beavers to a single run. Luke Morgan and Tanner Bradley each pitched a scoreless inning, Morgan striking out the side in the 7th. Devin Bell set them down in order in the ninth for his 12th save.

“The crowd tonight was fantastic," Gosztola said. "I felt them on every single pitch. I almost felt like they carried me through some of that ball game when fatigue started to set in, and it was amazing to be a part of.”

A home run-bashing machine all season, the Ducks bear down with a show of patience

All season long Mark Wasikowski's crew had won games with the long ball, hitting 104 home runs, just three shy of the school-record 107 smashed last year. Sunday night they broke open a tense game in the 7th with patience.

Burke Lee-Mabeus led off the top of the frame, working the count to 3-2, fouling off two pitches before taking ball four. With one out, Maddox Molony rapped a single up the middle. Jax Gimenez fell behind 1-2 but laid off three straight pitches to load the bases.

Jack Brooks walked to bring home a run, Cooney walked to bring home another, then Gimenez scored on a fielder's choice. In all four walks wrapped around one hit manufactured a 4-1 lead.

With the big bats quiet for a night, the Ducks won with pitching and defense. "I just thought we made really big pitches throughout the game," Wasikowski said. "There were a lot of high-stress innings."

Next the Ducks meet No. 6-seed Texas in the Super Regional in Austin, beginning Friday night on the ESPN family of networks. It's a three-game series for the right to advance to the College World Series in Omaha, college baseball's final eight.

The 43-13 Longhorns beat Holy Cross 19-1, Tarleton State 16-2 and UC Santa Barbara 6-4 to sweep the Austin Regional and reach the round of 16. As the higher seed they get to host the Ducks at
UFCU Disch-Falk Field, where it's 400 feet to straight away center, 340 to left and 325 down the right field line, capacity 7,373.

According to goducks.com, the Ducks have reached the Supers three times previously:

2024: Swept by Texas A&M 0-2 in the Bryan-College Station Super Regional

2023: Lost the best-of-three series 1-2 to Oral Roberts at the Eugene Super Regional

2012: Swept by Kent State 0-2 in the Eugene Super Regional

The 2026 squad finished 13-9 in road games, but down the stretch they took two of three from the Huskies in Seattle and battled hard in Los Angeles versus No. 1 UCLA. At the Big Ten Tournament in Omaha they won three straight over Wisconsin, Washington and Nebraska before falling 3-2 to the Bruins in 11 innings in the championship game.

Good pitching will beat good hitting, and vice versa

After blowing a 6-2 lead in the series decider in L.A. to lose 9-6, the Oregon bullpen has been brilliant. A weekend later at home against USC they hurled seven scoreless innings in a 14-inning game that took over five hours. At the B1G tourney Bradley and Morgan finished it off with three scoreless frames.

Collin Clarke gave them two scoreless innings in the final versus UCLA. Toby Twist struck out five and put up three zeroes in the 14-2 win over Yale. In Saturday's 4-0 shutout over Washington State, Bradley and Bell backed up starter Will Sanford with 2.2 innings of one-hit relief, striking out five. Sunday night, the line score read three innings, no runs, two hits, five strikeouts and no walks.

They'll need more of the same against UT as the Longhorns are 32-4 at home. They've hit .299 as a team this season with 357 walks, compared to 260 for the Ducks. Sophomore Dylan Volantis, a 6-6 lefthander from Thousand Oaks, California, led the SEC this season with a 9-1 record and a 1.94 ERA, striking out 116 in 83.1 innings.

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