For those of you who follow Pacific-10 Conference softball, and I have a feeling I may be speaking directly to myself here, it comes as no surprise to see the No. 19 Oregon Ducks matching up with yet another top-10 team in the nation this week. After all, nearly half the teams ranked in the top-20 are from the Pac-10, with seven squads holding down those spots.
The Ducks have already been through No. 1 Washington, No. 6 UCLA, No. 8 Arizona State and No. 15 California, and their final two conference matchups come against No. 4 Arizona at home this weekend and on the road at Stanford the following week. Stanford is currently tied with Cal in the No. 15 slot, according to the ESPN.com USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 polls.
All told, Oregon has made it through a difficult league schedule relatively unscathed. The Ducks won their first two series over Oregon State and California, and then picked up single wins against Washington and ASU, giving the team seven wins through 12 games. Before conference play began, first-year Oregon head coach Mike White said his team needed to win at least one game each series, with the possibility of ending the season with seven total conference wins to have a shot at the postseason. That goal was achieved last weekend at UCLA, but the Ducks still have an opportunity to spur a late-season run.
The question now is, will they be able to overcome a string of tough games? They’ve lost four of their last five outings and need to end the regular season on a positive note. Getting complacent is something that’s undoubtedly out of the question under White’s supervision, even with the desired seven-win season already under their belts.
But if you did happen to catch either of Wednesday’s games against Portland State, you would’ve seen a team that didn’t necessarily look complacent, just a little off-kilter. The team caught a few bad hops in the infield, left way too many runners on base, and ultimately never recovered. And for the first time this season, Oregon’s youth may have finally shown through.
On average, the Ducks start all four of their freshmen and one sophomore, with Neena Bryant as really the only member of the senior class making an impact from game to game. Seniors Carlyn Re and Blair Williamson saw some sporadic action throughout the beginning of the season, but White has kept his positional changes to a minimum during conference play.
With such a young foundation, it would have taken something spectacular for Oregon to make it through Pac-10 play without a few bumps and bruises. The team has already more than doubled its win total from a year ago and saw success early and often. Freshmen Samantha Pappas and Allie Burger were each ranked in the top five for batting average early on, but those spots are now filled with handful of upperclassmen.
I’ve seen the team play enough games to know it isn’t throwing in the towel by any means, but now that it’s backed into a corner with only two series remaining, who’s going to break the Ducks out of this slump? Jessica Moore’s career-high 14 strikeouts on Wednesday night weren’t enough to do it, so what’ll it take?
If the season ended tomorrow, Oregon’s 7-8 Pac-10 record would give the Ducks the fifth seed from the conference, just one game behind Arizona State, who will likely sweep Oregon State in Corvallis this weekend. Stanford, on the other hand, plays at Washington for three games and probably won’t make up any ground from its current No. 7 slot.
If one individual performance isn’t enough to get the ball rolling, a collective approach may be the only way to right the ship, and maybe that’s the way it should be. Either way, the team needs to get whatever this hiccup is behind it and find that groove it’ll so desperately need to get past Arizona.
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