The Ducks needed to sweep Iowa to claim the Big Ten regular season title and they brought the brooms with them to Iowa City. No. 5 Oregon (41-13, 22-8 Big Ten) capped off its tremendous regular season with an 13-4 win to sweep the Hawkeyes (32-20-1, 21-9 Big Ten).
The Ducks will take a 10-game winning streak into postseason play. They’ve won 14 of their last 15 and will be the top seed in the Big Ten Tournament in Omaha, Nebraska, next week.
Oregon sent righty Jason Reitz to the mound while Iowa countered with RHP Reece Beuter. With seeding, RPI and rankings on the mound, both squads needed a good outing from their guy and the Ducks got one from Reitz.
For the first time all weekend, Iowa struck first. Reitz hit the Hawkeye’ leadoff batter, who stole second and took third on a wild pitch before Caleb Wulf brought him home with an RBI groundout. While Iowa stranded two in the frame, the Hawkeyes still broke through for the game’s first run and made Reitz spend 24 pitches.
A funky play in left gave Iowa a runner on third with one out in the second, but Reitz was able to strand him, but his pitch count rose to 44 in another long inning.
Oregon, meanwhile, was held hitless until the top of the third when Carter Garate left the year for the second time in the series. His third blast of the season tied the game. The lefties in Oregon’s lineup provided a lot of loud contact against Beuter in his first time through the lineup, but Garate was the only one to get anything out of it.
Bueter’s outing ended a few batters later as Iowa turned to its bullpen. He threw 2.2 innings of one-hit, one-run ball on 42 strikeouts. Iowa went to lefty Ben DeTaeye to get Jacob Walsh swinging to end the frame. In all, the Hawkeyes used six pitchers in the loss.
Oregon took the lead in the fourth with a pair of two-out hits from the bottom of the lineup. Ryan Cooney (2-3, three RBIs) doubled to score Drew Smith and Garate (3-4, five RBIs) beat out a push bunt to score Chase Meggers and open up a 3-1 lead.
Reitz settled down after his rocky start, retiring seven-straight from the second to the fourth innings.
Dominic Hellman and Walsh both reached to start the fifth inning and put runners on second and third with nobody out. After an Iowa pitching change, Anson Aroz plated Hellman with an RBI groundout, but Meggers grounded into a double play to end the frame. Despite all the action on the basepaths, the Ducks only captured one run in a long top of the fifth.
Cooney led the sixth off with a solo shot — his fifth of the season — to the opposite field to put Oregon ahead by four. Later in the frame, a gargantuan blast from Walsh (his 19th) broke the game open. His homer plated three and gave Oregon an 8-1 advantage. The No. 1 seed in Omaha was close enough to smell, but Oregon needed to hold the lead.
Reitz’s day ended with two on and two out in the sixth. Ryan Featherston recorded the frame’s final out, bringing Reitz’s final line to 5.2 innings, one run, four hits, four strikeouts and two walks on 96 pitches. Reitz has now thrown at least five full innings in his last six outings.
Andy Nelson homered in the bottom of the seventh to get Iowa back on the board after being shut out from the second through sixth innings. Hellman erased it with a solo shot of his own in the top of the eighth, Oregon’s fourth homer of the day and his 12th of the year. The Ducks will finish with a record 107 homers in the 2025 regular season.
Cole Stokes walked in a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth. Santiago Garcia came in as Iowa looked to get back in the contest, but he got Reese Moore to ground out to end the threat and limit the damage to a pair of runs.
Garate continued his elite weekend in the ninth with a three-run shot to deal the final blow of Oregon’s 13-4 win.
With the win, Oregon secures at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title and the top seed in the Big Ten Tournament. The Ducks will be placed in Pool A with the No. 8 and No. 12 seeds in the tournament. Oregon will play the No. 12 seed on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. and the No. 8 seed on Friday at 4:00 p.m. If Oregon wins Pool A, the Ducks will advance to the semifinals on Saturday and play at noon.
