Monique Fuiava stepped to the plate as a pinch hitter two days ago, her team down six runs with no real shot at coming back. An out away from a third straight loss of the weekend, Fuiava harmlessly popped up to the catcher to end Oregon’s 6-0 loss to No. 3 UCLA with a shrug.
A powerful sophomore hitter, Fuiava’s recent struggles – she went from hitting clean-up Saturday to out of the lineup Sunday – aren’t that much different from her team.
Point is, it’s hard to win in the Pacific-10 Conference with a team of 10 freshmen and sophomores. This weekend proved it more than anything.
The Ducks went into it with a sense of momentum, head coach Kathy Arendsen said. But unfortunately for a young team trying to find its way through the brutal Pac-10, that’s easier said than done.
Oregon and Oregon State are only two of the eight Pac-10 institutions to field a softball team. They are also the only two who are not ranked.
Cal is the lowest of the six, ranked No. 14. Then it gets fun.
Stanford is second in the nation, UCLA third, Washington fourth, Arizona State eighth and Arizona eleventh.
Otherwise, as Oregon proved, this season is more about measuring improvement on a different scale than wins and losses. It has to be. You can’t go out for the 10 weeks of the Pac-10 season, where there won’t be many wins, and continually be discouraged with your play. Its only wins have come against Oregon State and a upset against Cal two weekends ago that showed the team had promise.
Sari-Jane Jenkins is one of two seniors on the team with pitcher Melissa Rice, and seemed to be one of the only players not dragged into the dumps after the disappointing weekend.
“Every weekend is like playing on the College World Series,” said Jenkins, whose home-run saving catch in left field was the only good thing that came out of Sunday’s loss. “All of these teams are going to be finalists.”
Another point she brought up: why can’t the Ducks have some fun ruining everyone else’s chances at the tournament?
Playing spoiler is more difficult in this conference than any, especially when the top six are virtual locks for the tournament. But the point is that Oregon has to find something to play for period. The team looked resigned to its fate the last two games of the weekend.
Against Washington, there was a sense Oregon might get something going. There wasn’t even a chance of that Saturday, which Arendsen picked up on immediately after the game.
“Extremely disappointing,” she called Saturday’s effort.
It’s an especially big disappointment to Oregon fans because the Ducks have been to two straight NCAA Tournaments and five out of the last six years. And it doesn’t help that there’s still fresh memories of the debacle that was the men’s and women’s basketball seasons. But the lesson learned from the men’s season should also be followed with softball. Every team deserves some time to grow. This team could grow into something special in a year or two. Right now it needs to find maturity, as Arendsen said.
Sometimes maturity comes by a trial by fire. Or, as it’s otherwise known, the Pac-10 schedule.
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