There are no must-win games in No. 3 Oregon’s (46-6, 18-3 Big Ten) regular season, but there are games in which the Ducks need to stop the bleeding.
Oregon found itself in such a situation on Sunday, as the team with the most wins in the country was in danger of losing two games to the same team for the first time all season — and choking away the Big Ten regular-season championship.
Lucky for head coach Melyssa Lombardi’s squad, they had a human tourniquet in the form of Elise Sokolsky, who blanked the Michigan State Spartans (16-28, 6-15 Big Ten) on three hits, struck out five and walked two over five shutout innings in a 14-0 win.
“There was no way we were losing twice in a row,” first baseman Rylee McCoy said. “We just played Oregon softball.”
Kai and Kedre Luchar combined to go 5-6 for the Ducks, who clinched a piece of the Big Ten regular season championship with the win. With another victory Sunday, Oregon will clinch an outright conference win.
“We’re not done,” Paige Sinicki said. “This is just the beginning.”
After Lyndsey Grein’s disappointing start a day prior, Sokolsky was a stabilizing force in the circle. She retired 15 of 19 batters and fired 47 of her 73 pitches for strikes.
“She always has the dog in her,” Sinicki said. “ Lyndsey can’t be perfect, so for her to have her back is awesome.”
Oregon struck early, hanging three runs on MSU in both the first and second innings with Sinicki and McCoy’s homers the biggest blasts.
“It’s so impressive,” Lombardi said of McCoy, who leads the team with 18 homers on the season. “If you saw her play you’d think she was an older athlete on the team. But to see her do this as a freshman is so impressive.”
“I was looking for something fast,” Sinicki said. “She had thrown me two changeups and I knew she was going to throw me a fastball and I took it over the fence.”
From there, Sokolsky’s job was easy: fill up the strike zone, limit damage and pitch as deep as possible in a game where Oregon was never really challenged.
Another McCoy homer parlayed with an RBI walk and a pair of RBI singles helped the Ducks put the run-rule well into effect, but with the way Sokolsky was pitching, anything else was superfluous.
“It’s crazy,” Sokolsky said. “It’s really special to see what myself and this team have gone through.It’s just God’s plan.”
After the game, the Ducks donned hats and celebrated in front of the pitchers’ circle — with fans deliriously cheering them on.
But the celebration wasn’t over the top.
With Saturday’s win, the Ducks will be the No.1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. Oregon is also near-guaranteed to host a regional.
The Ducks will go for a series win and the outright conference title Sunday at 1 p.m.
“This is awesome and I know we won’t be forgetting this for a while,” Sokolsky said. “But we need to go into tomorrow with a short-term memory.”
