Another loss.
That’s how the inaugural season of Oregon Duck baseball finished Sunday in front of a sold-out crowd at PK Park when the team lost 5-2 to the Arizona Wildcats.
It wasn’t a complete shock; the team had lost 12 in a row coming into the game and 26 of its last 28, but the Ducks (14-42 overall, 4-23 Pacific-10 Conference), wanted to end 2009 on a good note.
“I don’t think it was a must-win, it was more ‘let’s go do this to give our fans something to keep cheering about for next year,’” left fielder Curtis Raulinaitis said.
It didn’t happen, as the Wildcats (30-25, 13-14) swept the team by scores of 3-1, 14-5, 5-2.
“It was like Groundhog’s Day,” head coach George Horton said as phase two of construction at PK Park started behind him.
The Duck skipper was right. Oregon has lost quite a few games of the 5-2, 6-3 variety this year. The team never got over the top and connected with clutch base hits over the weekend and season.
“We had so many games where two or three more hits would have slipped us to .500,” senior Caleb Tommasini said. “There were a lot of close ones that we let slip away.”
On Friday, starter Erik Stavert (5-6) saw another quality start go to waste after his offense scored just one run for him. Stavert went eight innings, giving up six hits and three runs while striking out 10 batters.
But the Ducks couldn’t figure out 2007 Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year Preston Guilmet, who gave up just one run on seven hits while striking out 12 batters in 7.2 innings. At one point Guilmet retired 16 hitters in a row.
Then on Saturday, the Ducks jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, but saw the Wildcats outscore them 14-3 in the last seven innings. Tyler Anderson (2-9) received the loss for Oregon.
And on the final day of the season, the Ducks hung around until the sixth inning when Arizona broke a 1-1 tie by scoring two. Alex Keudell (0-6) earned the loss in relief of Drew Gagnier, who left the game in the top of the fifth with two outs with the score tied at one.
From the plate, Raulinaitis went 6-for-10 in the series with a run scored to lead Oregon. Right fielder Antony Kreitz added an RBI double in game three.
“We hit the ball pretty well,” Tommasini said. “We hit it hard at people, though. That’s baseball. If it were easy everyone would want to play.”
Now begins the final stage of construction of PK Park. With local band the Valley Boys playing by the beer garden, Senior Associate Athletic Director Joe Giansante and Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny were on hand to break ground on phase two of construction.
It will include adding the final dugouts, a clubhouse connected to the home dugout, covered seats and a press box, along with suites, a terraced beer garden and working lights.
“We’re pretty darn close to completing fundraising,” Kilkenny said. “I think it’s like a diet. The first five pounds come off pretty quick, but the last 10 come off a little bit slower. We still need raise a few million dollars, but we have $18.5 million leveraged and raised for phases one and two. That’s pretty amazing considering the economy and what we’ve done for the arena, and what other alumni and fans have given to the campus.”
All Horton is concerned with is that he will finally have a park to call his own starting next fall.
“The stuff Joe Giansante and Pat Kilkenny are doing on breaking ground on phase two of the construction will just make it a more cozy bed to lie in,” Horton said. “We will have our own bed now and I’m really looking forward to going to work in our own facility.”
[email protected]