The time has finally come.
For the first time ever, Oregon and seven other Pac-12 teams will compete in a double-elimination conference tournament. The No. 4 seeded Ducks will travel to sunny Phoenix, Arizona this week, where they’ll look to boost their resume heading into regionals. The games will be played at Scottsdale Stadium, the spring training home of the San Francisco Giants.
Oregon’s first opponent is No. 5 seeded Arizona. The Wildcats are a familiar foe, with the Ducks having just swept them last weekend. It’ll be the teams’ fourth consecutive matchup, kicking off Wednesday’s slate of games with a 9 a.m. start time. Arizona was the No. 25 team in the country before Oregon’s sweep.
Oregon head coach Mark Wasikowski is familiar with Arizona, having been an assistant coach there for 10 years. Under former head coach Andy Lopez, Wasikowski and the Wildcats went to the College World Series in 2004.
“I know [current Arizona coach] Chip Hale very well. He’s a legend in that community,” Wasikowski said. “They’re a good program, and we’re looking forward to playing them.”
The tournament is formatted similarly to a typical regional, except with eight teams instead of four. The bracket is split in half so that each set of four teams compete in what is essentially a “regional,” with the winner of each regional playing each other in the championship game. Oregon is in a “regional,” so to speak, with Arizona, Arizona State and No. 4 Stanford.
Among those three opponents, Stanford is the team to beat. The Ducks took two out of three over the Cardinal back in March, but Stanford finished the year on a 12-game winning streak, topping the Beavers for the Pac-12 regular season title. The Cardinal are the No. 1 seed in the tournament, while the Sun Devils squeaked ahead of Washington State as the No. 8 seed.
The two Arizona squads, meanwhile, are the two Pac-12 teams Oregon has beaten most recently. The Ducks took two out of three over the Sun Devils two weeks ago for their first ever series win in Tempe. After winning their second matchup against No. 10 Gonzaga, they wrapped up the regular season with a sweep of Arizona and a five-game winning streak.
Everything seemed to click for Oregon in that sweep. Even the pitching, which was an issue at times throughout the year, took a step up. Isaac Ayon and Jace Stoffal gave the best outings of their respective careers, while the combination of Christian Ciuffetelli and RJ Gordon was successful for the second week in a row. The Ducks will look to replicate that success on Wednesday, likely with Ciuffetelli and Gordon going again.
“Obviously we’ve been on the other end of that equation this season of playing a team a consecutive amount of times,” Oregon outfielder Tanner Smith said. “We do know it’s tough, but we are looking forward to it.”
The Ducks’ hitters, who exploded for 10 runs on Thursday and put up just enough runs Friday and Saturday, will have the Arizona pitchers fresh in their mind as they go against them this week.
“I think it’s great for not only me individually, but our offense in general to see what we’re working with, what the plan of attack is gonna be for each guy,” Smith said. “I think it’s really beneficial going forward.”
On the other side of the bracket, No. 2 Oregon State, No. 23 UCLA, Washington and Cal will compete in a “regional.” The former two both swept the Ducks this year, so there would be some revenge on the line in a potential championship game.
The Ducks’ tournament schedule could go a lot of different ways depending on how they do. If they lose on Wednesday, they’ll get another 9 a.m. game Thursday against the loser of Arizona State vs. Stanford. If they win on Wednesday, they’ll play at 4:45 p.m. Thursday against the winner of that game.
If they win on both Wednesday and Thursday, they’ll have Friday off. If they split the first two, they’ll play at either 3 p.m. Friday or 45 minutes after the end of that game.
Saturday begins at 9 a.m. again, with the Ducks potentially playing up to two games if necessary. The nature of a double-elimination tournament means a team could still work its way to the championship through the losers bracket. By the end of Saturday, there will only be two teams left — one from each “regional.”
Those two teams will face off at 7 p.m. Sunday as they compete for the first ever Pac-12 Baseball Tournament title. The winner will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. In the Ducks’ case, a strong tournament performance would bolster their chances of hosting a regional, a conversation which they kept alive by beating Gonzaga and sweeping Arizona.
“We had a bump in the road, as pretty much all the teams have had a bump in the road,” Wasikowski said. “So hopefully the committee looks at what we’re doing here down the stretch as getting hot at the right time, and the environment at PK Park and the number of people, and the facility we have is definitely worthy of hosting.”
The Ducks could play as few as only two games if they lose both, but as many as six if they play Friday and end up going to the championship. Regardless, they’ll be trekking over to the 100-degree Phoenix heat this week for what will be a historic, inaugural event.
