No press box seat? No problem! I was still able to attend and cover the No. 6 Ducks’ 8-4 win over No. 7 Oregon State in Corvallis, Oregon on Tuesday night.
Goss Stadium sits on the Beavers’ campus and has its quirks. Unfortunately for me, it’s a fairly old ballpark and its press box is quite small.
I was told ahead of time that there wouldn’t be room for me in the press box, but I’d still be granted a credential. So, I took an unconventional approach to my coverage.
I took the chance to fully explore the ballpark and moved around every few innings, plopping myself in the few open seats I could find in OSU’s ninth-largest crowd in Goss Stadium’s history.
The fireworks started right away. Both Jacob Walsh and Gavin Turley homered in the first innings as the Ducks and Beavers traded solo shots. Walsh’s blast was his fourth of the season against Oregon State. He homered in each of the four rivalry games.
“There’s a lot of energy that goes into this series,” Walsh said. “It means a lot on both sides. The guys just kind of came together and said, you know, ‘We haven’t done well against them since I’ve been here.’ And it was like, ‘We’re done with that. We needed to get [them] this time’.”
The Ducks got to the Beavers, all right. Oregon (31-12) outscored OSU (32-11) 28-9 across the four-game set.
Freshman Will Sanford struggled with control on Tuesday as he issued five walks in two innings of work and allowed a two-out single from Trent Caraway to give the Beavers a 3-1 lead.
“I actually thought the ball was really coming out of his hand good tonight,” Wasikowski said. “And, again, it was just he wasn’t in the strike zone enough for him to be effective. But the stuff was there.”
Ryan Featherston entered in the third and delivered one of the game’s biggest moments. He worked out of a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam without allowing a run to cross. “Mark that one down in case Oregon ends up winning this game,” I told myself. “That was a crucial mistake from OSU.”
Spoiler: it mattered.
Ryan Cooney got one back in the third with a monster blast off the batter’s eye in center field. His third homer of the year was a loud one that cut the deficit, but Featherston balked in a run in the fourth to make it a two-run game once again.
I moved around and found a new spot down the third-base line (maybe to change the mojo?) and felt the energy shift in the sixth. Back-to-back batters reached to start the frame, prompting a pitching change.
Jeffery Heard recorded a pinch-hit RBI groundout to set up another big moment. Cooney grounded a ball toward second base, but the throw to first pulled Jacob Krieg away from the bag. Heard scored and Drew Smith never stopped running, coming around from second to put Oregon ahead by a run in the sixth.
“(Wasikowski) always talks about being old, and I think that we’ve really taken that to heart,” Cooney said. “Guys are taking old at-bats, being old on the mound. Really taking your breath and relaxing is what’s been really important for us.”
A pair of blistering doubles from Mason Neville and Walsh in the seventh added to what was now an Oregon lead. A hush fell over Corvallis. The fans realized what was ahead: a sixth-straight loss to the Ducks that dates back to last season.
The Ducks’ bullpen locked it down from there. Oregon used seven pitchers in the win, with Jaxon Jordan and Cole Stokes providing especially stellar outings.
I moved to behind home plate for the final outs. It was the closest I’d be to the press box itself. The Beavers got their first two runners on in the bottom of the ninth, trailing by four, but Santiago Garcia and Seth Mattox combined to work out of another jam and slam the door shut.
Game, Ducks. Series, Ducks.
I made my way to the field for media as Goss Stadium quickly emptied in a mixture of stunned silence and ongoing frustrations. Nobody likes losing to a rival, but the Ducks won’t know the feeling against the Beavers in 2025.
“They battled back. They didn’t quit,” Wasikowski said. “They showed a lot of toughness with that. This is a hard place to play. It’s a very good program. I was happiest with just the personality of our team, to be able to fight through some adversity and be able to play their best when they needed to tonight.”
Would I have liked a press box seat? Sure. But my unconventional coverage method triggered a unique memory. When covering a full season of baseball, it’s easy for games to blend together. I doubt I’ll forget this game or experience any time soon.
