Oregon can clinch its first winning season since 2000 with a win in either game of today’s 3 p.m. doubleheader against Nevada.
If the No. 20 Ducks earn the winning season, head coach Kathy Arendsen will be only the second Duck coach since at least 1986 to lead Oregon to a winning record in her first season.
Arendsen is confident that her Ducks can help themselves earn that winning season.
“Our magic number sits at one,” Arendsen said. “We want to clinch our winning record tomorrow in the first game, and start working toward really giving the committee no choice but to involve us in the postseason when we start winning that second game.”
Nevada has welcomed back its softball program to Reno after a 13-year hiatus. The Wolfpack is 20-27 this season in the Western Athletic Conference.
“Reno’s a good ballclub,” Arendsen said. “They’re going to come out here and they’re going to battle.
“They’ve got everything to gain. They’re kind of like we are in some of the (Pacific-10 Conference) games — everything to gain and nothing to lose because they’re not expected to win, but those are the most dangerous teams. Just like we’ve been in Pac-10 play.”
Nevada sports a roster with no seniors. All seven juniors are junior college transfers recruited by head coach Michelle Gardner in her first recruiting year. The squad’s four sophomores were already students at Nevada when the announcement was made that a softball program would be added for the 2003 season. The four were the only students to survive Gardner’s open tryouts and make the squad.
“I know their head coach well,” Arendsen said. “She was an assistant at Arizona State and Florida State.”
Gardner was at Arizona State until December 2001, when she was announced as Nevada’s new head coach and began building her program.
The Ducks (24-14 overall, 4-8 Pac-10) host the Wolfpack in the midst of the Pac-10 season.
Friday and Saturday featured home games against Oregon State. Friday’s 2-1 win was the first home victory against the beavers since 1999. The victory also secured the 2002-2003 Civil War Cup for Oregon for all the varsity sports.
On Saturday, the Ducks let Oregon State take an early lead — a home run on the game’s first pitch — and weren’t able to come back, losing to the Beavers for the first time this season, 7-3.
“We need to get it rolling again after not playing so well on the weekend,” Arendsen said. “(These are) huge games — any time you’re playing at home.”

Oregon also swept Portland State in a non-conference doubleheader Wednesday. The Ducks shut out the Vikings in both games, 4-0 and 5-0.
The Ducks recently announced their first summer camp in several years.
“The information is on the Web site,” Arendsen said. “The idea is that we can help promote and develop softball not only in the Eugene area, but in Oregon and Washington.”
The camp is open to girls ages 10-18. The three camps — an all-skills camp, a pitching and catching camp and a hitting camp — will be run by Arendsen and assistant coaches J. Gaudreau and Mike White during July.
“We want to develop baby ducks, hopefully,” Arendsen said.
Oregon faces off against Pac-10 competition again this weekend, as the Ducks host No. 1 Arizona on Friday and No. 12 Arizona State on Saturday and Sunday.