It’s time to jump right back on the horse for Oregon softball.
Two days removed from a weekend sweep, the No. 22 Ducks (24-16 overall, 1-5 Pacific-10 Conference) try to rebound against Oregon State today at 3 p.m. at Howe Field.
The task does not get any easier for head coach Rick Gamez and his team as the No. 11 Beavers (26-12 , 0-6) come to town looking for their first conference win of the year.
“We’re going to continue to battle,” Gamez said. “The Beavers are in the same boat we are. Now it just becomes a matter of forgetting about everything that’s happened, and it’s Civil War time.”
Forgetting about this past weekend is just what the Ducks want to do because against UCLA and Washington the team only scored one run in three games. But the Beavers didn’t fare any better, dropping all three of their games by a combined score of 19-10.
“This is a huge game, it always is — it’s Civil War,” sophomore pitcher Connie McMurren said. “Especially with [the way] the Pac-10 standings [are] right now.”
Despite the lack of offense by the Ducks over the weekend, Oregon showed signs of coming out of its collective slump. Freshman Andrea Vidlund hit her first home run Saturday, and Holly Ray knocked a shot to the base of the left-center field wall for her third double of the year.
“They’ll be ready, they’ll put this weekend behind them and get ready for Tuesday,” Gamez said. “I thought we got better from Friday all the way up to [Sunday], and that’s something that we want to strive for. We don’t want to roll over and die.”
However, Gamez needs his whole lineup to produce today if the Ducks are going to turn their fortunes. Junior Triawn Custer is boasting a .400 batting average and hit a couple of balls during the weekend that fell just short of clearing the fence, showing signs that she will rebound. Jill Robinson, a senior from Winton, Calif., will be needed to provide some leadership with her team-high 10 homers and 33 runs batted in. One thing the coach does not fault is his team’s aggressiveness at the plate.
“We want to be aggressive and attack the ball. Unfortunately, we were a little undisciplined and chased balls out of the zone,” Gamez said. “I’d rather have that than sitting up there taking pitches and called strikes.”
McMurren feels the Ducks are hitting the ball well, just not in the right places.
“We’re too good of a hitting team for this to go on,” McMurren said. “We’ve just got to stay confident that we’ll hit the ball when we need to.”
On the mound Oregon received some of its best pitching performances of the year. McMurren (9-11) was a tough-luck loser when she threw a three-hit, 1-0 defeat in what she called “the best game she’s thrown,” and Vidlund (12-4) pitched 3 1/3 innings of one-hit ball in relief on Saturday. In spite of her sub-.500 winning percentage, McMurren feels she is pitching at a high level. Her coach agrees.
“She’s threw to the majority of the tough opponents, and she’s kept us in all of them,” Gamez said. “That’s the thing we’ve asked her to do. She’s a battler.”
McMurren knows a win can come at anytime.
“It’s very frustrating, but at the same time I just have to keep it in mind that it’s going to happen for only so long ,” McMurren said. “It’s bound to happen sometime.”
Performances like those will need to be repeated against the interstate rivals today because there are some bats in the Beavers lineup that showed some life in Sunday’s contest. Steph Adams knocked a three-run homer and Jenni Jodoin contributed a double and an RBI during a late-inning rally.
Oregon returns to action tomorrow as the team heads to Portland for a double-header against Portland State. The games were originally scheduled to be played on Tuesday, April 11th, but were postponed because of rain.
UO plans to disregard latest losses
Daily Emerald
April 10, 2000
Kevin Calame Emerald
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