The Oregon baseball team lost by one run for the fourth time in the last five games on Saturday.

Riding off Friday night’s 13-7 win, the Ducks couldn’t gather much up offensively in the first game of their doubleheader against Ball State at PK Park. They held a 1-0 lead for the first six innings, but a critical error led to two runs in the eighth. Similar to the UCLA series, they couldn’t come back in the late innings and lost 3-2.

Tanner Smith started the scoring, depositing the very first pitch thrown by Tyler Schweitzer over the right field wall.

Oregon right-hander Isaac Ayon worked around a pair of singles in a scoreless first inning. He settled in nicely after that as both offenses struggled to get anything going. The game moved at a brisk pace, getting through four innings in under an hour. Ayon collected four strikeouts in that span with a fastball that sat at 92 mph.

Josh Kasevich made a fielding error on a routine ground ball in the fifth, giving Ball State a free scoring opportunity. But Kasevich redeemed himself, making a solid play to end the inning and keep the Cardinals off the board.

The red hot Anthony Hall collected his second hit in the bottom of the fifth, but the Ducks stranded him at second.

Ayon gave up a leadoff single in the sixth, the fifth hit against him. He retired the next three batters, completing his sixth scoreless inning with a total of just 66 pitches on the afternoon. Perhaps most importantly, he didn’t walk anyone.

Ayon gave up two singles in the seventh and was pulled, having thrown 75 pitches. Somewhat surprisingly, the Ducks brought closer Kolby Somers in with two on and one out. He retired the first batter he faced, but with two outs and two strikes, he surrendered a liner to right-center that tied the game at one apiece. The run was charged to Ayon.

Somers recorded a strikeout to keep it tied, but the Ducks went into the bottom of the seventh in urgent need of more offense. Hall led off with his third hit on a liner that the Cardinals thought was caught. Ball State head coach Rich Maloney ran out from the dugout and yelled at the umpires for a few moments before departing the field.

Josiah Cromwick pinch hit for Jack Scanlon with Hall on second, but he struck out. Gavin Grant and Smith then drew back-to-back walks to load the bases. With two strikes on Colby Shade, a wild pitch scooted to the backstop and allowed Hall to come in with the go-ahead run. The Ducks retook the lead, 2-1.

Just minutes after the Ducks took the lead on a wild pitch, the Cardinals tied the game on a wild pitch. A single against Somers and a two-base error by Sam Novitske put two runners in scoring position. The wild pitch knotted it up at two apiece.

Cromwick tagged out the Ball State runner who wandered too far off third for the second out. But Somers allowed a solo blast, giving the Cardinals a 3-2 lead. Both runs in the inning were unearned due to Novitske’s error.

The Ducks went down quietly in the ninth. Novitske hit one hard, but right to the shortstop. Cromwick and Grant struck out to end the game. It was another tough one-run loss for the Ducks, who had three of those last weekend against the Bruins.

The series is now even at 1-1 with two games left to play this weekend.

Oregon (19-11) and Ball State (18-10) will continue with the second game of the doubleheader at approximately 3:30 p.m.