A group of scarlet jerseys rushed to home plate to celebrate with sophomore Jade Berry after she recorded the Cardinal’s fourth home run of the afternoon with a shot over the right field wall in the fifth inning.
The stadium became very familiar with this scene on Saturday, as Stanford (50-11, 16-8 ACC) took down the No. 16 seed Oregon (48-8, 19-3 Big Ten) 14-1 in the first game of the day.
The Ducks defeated Weber State University (28-31, 8-7 Big Sky) on Friday in an 8-0 victory in five innings. The Cardinal entered the matchup off a 9-2 win against Binghamton University (36-13, 16-2 American East Conference).
Taryn Kern led things off by hitting a single to center field and advancing to third off an error by Kedre Luschar. Emily Jones made Oregon pay for the previous fielding error by driving in Kern with a single up the middle.
Elise Sokolsky, who started inside the circle, drew soft contact against the next three batters in order to retire the top of the inning with minimal damage.
The Ducks drew two walks to eventually put two runners in scoring position. Stanford head coach Jessica Allister made an early pitching change with two outs. Alyssa Houston entered for Kylie Chung at the bottom of the first, immediately recording a strikeout to leave two on base.
“I thought [Houston] did a good job of competing in the zone,” Allister said. “I think she executed our game plan in big situations.”
Joie Economides piled onto Oregon’s struggles by hitting a homer down the left field line to put the Cardinal up 2-0 at the top of the second.
“I think we have a lot of new people who hadn’t faced [Sokolsky] last year, so we were completely wiped of that memory,” Jones said. “We came in with a fresh, clean slate and faced her as another pitcher that we faced all season.”
Lyndsey Grein replaced Sokolsky later in the inning, coming off a Friday performance where she tallied nine strikeouts. Jane Sanders Stadium rattled to the applause of the crowd as Grein and the Ducks’ defense recorded two outs against the next three batters.
The Cardinal hit a couple more solo shots with Grein in the game, one coming by Allie Clements in the fourth and another by River Mahler in the fifth.
In the middle of the fourth inning, the Jane Sanders crowd rose to its feet during the tradition of ‘Shout.’ The high-level energy in the stadium carried into the bottom of the inning. Stefini Ma’ake trailed in the count, taking a couple of big swings that went foul.
Ma’ake belted the 2-2 pitch down the left field line, bringing in pinch-runner Regan Legg from second.
It ended up being the only scoring the Ducks saw in their first Saturday game. Stanford forced Oregon to make a couple more pitching changes with seven more runs.
“That’s actually been one of our strengths all year, is that we feel like we can score up and down the lineup,” Allister said. “Around different times in the season, different people have stepped up and kind of taken the lead on the offense. And I think that’s why we’ve been able to be as consistent as we’ve been.”
A disastrous start to the sixth inning, with six Cardinal runs and the bases loaded, brought Sokolsky back into the game. Stanford scored three more times in what was a 45-minute half inning.
The Ducks are set to play on Saturday versus the winner of Weber State and Binghamton after the conclusion of their game.
