The Oregon softball is team riding a hot streak. The Ducks have won 13 of their last 15 games, including a sweep of defending national champion UCLA on Saturday.
But Oregon State is riding a streak of its own – an 18-game winning streak – and the Ducks will need to keep their momentum going if they plan on beating the No. 16 Beavers in Corvallis today at 4 p.m.
The Beavers (24-6 overall, 3-0 Pacific-10 Conference) are fresh off a weekend in which they beat No. 7 UCLA once and No. 17 Washington twice, earning Oregon State both the Pac-10’s Player of the Week and Pitcher of the Week.
Oregon State pitcher Brianne
McGowan was perfect last week with a
5-0 record and has won 17 consecutive outings for the Beavers on her way to earning the award. During her five wins last week, the Reno, Nev., native
had a minuscule 0.88 ERA with
39 strikeouts. Four of her five wins were complete games, and in her win against Washington , she became the fourth player in Oregon State history – and the fastest – to get to 20 wins.
McGowan also did it with the bat, hitting a pair of home runs and tying a career-high with four RBIs against
the Huskies .
The Beavers’ main threat at the plate last week, though, was junior first baseman Vanessa Iapala. The San Diego, Calif., native hit .538 this week, smacking three doubles and knocking in four RBIs while scoring six runs. She is now second on the team in hitting with a
.369 batting average.
But the Ducks (22-10, 2-1) aren’t too worried about their rival to the north.
“We’ve seen what Oregon State has,” Oregon pitcher Amy Harris said. “They’re coming at you with a sophomore pitcher that didn’t get a lot of
innings last year, but we are just going
to stick to the game plan and see what they can hit and adjust to that.”
And not many have been hitting Harris of late. The junior from Eugene has allowed a mere three runs in her last
57 innings, leading to her team-best
1.04 ERA, eighth in the conference. She also leads the team in wins (11), innings pitched (107.2) and strikeouts (105).
Oregon’s offense it has been spearheaded by the production of leadoff hitter Lovena Chaput. The freshman, a week after being named Pac-10 Player of the Week, went 4 for 9 combined against the Bruins and Huskies with a home run, a triple, four runs and two RBIs. The weekend lifted her batting average to .340 on the season, fourth on
the team.
Another hitter commanding the conference’s respect has been first baseman Beth Boskovich. The junior is hitting .294 this season, but hasn’t had a lot of chances to hit as she has been walked
19 times, tied for third in the conference. Those walks – plus the four times she has been hit by a pitch this season – have translated to the conference’s
10th-best on-base percentage at .457.
Oregon head coach Kathy Arendsen has gone 4-4 against Oregon State since arriving in Eugene in 2003; previous to her arrival, the Ducks had lost nine
consecutive games to the Beavers. But Oregon still commands a 75-67-1 advantage in the matchup’s history.

[email protected]