CORVALLIS — The 14th-ranked Ducks were on their way to a sweep of Oregon State. The first meeting of the season, on a dreary March 26 in Eugene, allowed Oregon’s offensive strengths to shine in a bottom-of-the-seventh, come-from-behind 9-8 victory.
With a 2-1 Pacific-10 Conference road trip one week after the conference opener, the Ducks (30-10 overall, 4-2 Pac-10) wanted to capitalize on their momentum as their schedule took them to Corvallis just two weeks after the teams (34-12, 2-4) initially faced each other.
Friday was the second meeting of the three-game series. The Ducks took this game as an opportunity to showcase another one of their talents, transfer pitcher Ani Nyhus.
Nyhus continued her dominance of the past 10 days, throwing her third one-hitter in that time period, as Oregon put up two runs on five hits to give Nyhus her 15th victory of the season.
“It was comfortable,” Nyhus said Saturday. “Things were working for me. (The Beavers) hadn’t seen me for two weeks.”
The Ducks scored a run in the top of the first inning when designated hitter Beth Boskovich hit a single to center field that scored catcher Jenn Poore. In the second inning, Oregon added its second run on a double by center fielder Suzie Barnes that scored left fielder Dani Baird. Baird led the Ducks on Friday with two of the team’s five hits.
Saturday, Oregon gave the ball to the hot-handed Nyhus, who has started all but one of the Ducks’ Pac-10 games. Oregon State’s game against Nyhus the previous day, as well as the emergence of the Jekyll-and-Hyde side of Oregon’s defense (four errors Saturday compared to none Friday), helped the Beavers to a 7-4 victory.
“I think that was kind of the difference,” Nyhus said. “They saw me for seven innings (Friday). The difference was also a few (defensive) misses. Our defense was immaculate (Friday).”
Senior Anissa Meashintubby relieved Nyhus in the first inning after Nyhus gave up four runs on four hits and one error. Meashintubby finished the inning and allowed one run in the second before Amy Harris came in with one out and the bases loaded. Harris finished the game, throwing 4 2/3 innings. She gave up two hits and two runs and struck out five.
“We dug our hole too deep against a really good team,” Oregon head coach Kathy Arendsen said Saturday. “I was more disappointed with the four errors than I was anything else. We left quite a few people on base. We had quite a few opportunities and we didn’t quite capitalize on them.”
The Ducks answered Oregon State’s four-run first inning with two runs in the top of the second. The Beavers scored a run in the second, third and fourth innings to raise their lead to 7-2. Oregon scored one run in the fifth to pull to within four.
In the seventh, left fielder Julie Jaime reached second base on an error with one out. With two outs, shortstop Breanne Sabol hit a double to the center-field wall that scored Jaime and gave the Ducks a glimpse of their comeback win two weeks previous. Oregon’s next batter hit a ground ball to the shortstop to end the game.