Cole Irvin allowed just two runs in seven innings and Oregon’s bats came alive in the fifth and sixth inning to help give the Ducks a 7-4 win Friday night over Oregon State. And the victory proved to have short and long term significance.
It was the first time since Oregon reinstated baseball in 2009 that the Ducks recorded a conference win in Corvallis. The win also marked manager George Horton’s 1,000th career victory.
“I’m proud to have been coaching that long, and to have a thousand kind of puts a tear in my eye that I’ve been blessed with a career in making a difference in people’s lives and winning a few baseball games along the way,” Horton told GoDucks.com.
He also said the storyline about his 1,000th is a sidebar, which seems to serve as the perfect term considering current outlook for this group. After losing a series at Arizona State and then going winless in back-to-back games against Gonzaga earlier this week, the Ducks’ NCAA Tournament hopes look bleak.
But, a win Friday moved them ahead of the Beavers in the conference standings and into a fifth place tie with USC. The Ducks remain five games back of Utah with eight games remaining.
Now, it’ll just be a matter of replicating the outing they had Friday through the remainder of the season. That formula included a quality start from Irvin, as well as multi-RBI games from Daniel Patzlaff and Kyle Kasser.
With the Ducks trailing 2-1 in the top of the fifth, Kasser’s two-RBI single that scored Carson Breshears and Travis Moniot served as an offensive spark that the Ducks took into the sixth, one in which the Ducks scored three runs on a fielders choice. Steven Packard then added to Oregon’s lead in the seventh with a sacrifice fly that scored Kasser.
After Oregon State tacked on a pair of runs in the eighth, Stephen Nogosek weathered the damage and got the final four outs to secure the win and his 12th save.
“It’s one of the nine,” Horton said. “I challenged my team and told them we probably need to win all nine, is actually what I said. Easier said than done, but we haven’t been a good road team and we haven’t been a good road team here. But you can’t win all nine unless you win the first one, so I’m proud of them.”
Oregon plays Oregon State in the second of the three-game series Saturday at 7 p.m.
Follow Justin Wise on Twitter @JustinFWise