After winning big in Las Vegas, the Ducks bet on their bullpen, and the Beavers took them for all they had.

The No. 23 Ducks (10-2) relied on their bullpen heavily in a 10-6 loss against the No. 18 Oregon State Beavers (7-4), with reliever Miles Gosztola (3.0 IP, 4 H, 1K, 2 ER) getting his first start for Oregon with none of their usual starters available after the weekend on the road. Ryan Cooney (2-5, 1 R) and Angel Laya (2-4, HR, 3 RBI) helped soften the blow with solid hitting, but just wasn’t enough.

“It was really sloppy just on our side,” head coach Mark Wasikowski said. “It was sloppy on both sides. It was awful.”

Gosztola got off to a strong start, finding the zone early and often, which put batters behind in the count and forced them to swing on less-than-ideal pitches to get some easy outs. He managed to catch Beavers’ right fielder Adam Haight stealing after he reached from a hit by pitch.

Connor Mendez got the nod for the Beavers in his first appearance of the season and had a similar approach to Gosztola by throwing lots of strikes, but he was less fortunate, and Cooney knocked a leadoff hit down the middle to get things started.

Cooney also drew some attention from Mendez, with the pitcher attempting to pick him off over ten times throughout the first inning. He ended up scoring on a ground-rule double from Maddox Molony late in the inning to go up 1-0.

In the top of the second, Drew Smith showed why head coach  Wasikowski put him at third with an impressive diving stop at the hot corner, which prevented a potential run from scoring.

“He’s played good defense, and he’s hit very well,” Wasikowski said. “He’s probably up there among some of the nation leaders with RBIs and he’s a great kid. I mean, he’s a real blessing.”

The Beavers went on a scoring tear starting in the third inning, scoring six runs through the sixth, forcing Oregon to make multiple pitching changes that could not stop the bleeding. Josh Proctor doubled a total of three times with two RBIs in that span for OSU. The Beavers’ pitching held strong as well, striking out six and holding a 7-1 lead  through six.

The Ducks’ bats remained cold until Angel Laya ripped a deep two-run home run to center field to make it 7-3 in the bottom of the sixth. 

“He’s super talented. Obviously, everybody can see that with the performance,” Cooney said. “I think it’s his mentality, how calm he is at the plate. If you’re able to take a closer look at his at bats, he’s very collected and is with himself and very confident, and I think that’s something not a lot of young guys have at this level.”

A three-run double from OSU catcher Jacob Galloway to go up 10-3 in the seventh gave the Beavers their biggest lead of the game, but Oregon responded in the eighth with two runs on an RBI groundout from Smith and an RBI triple from Laya. Laya scored soon after on a single from pinch-hitter Burke-Lee Mabeus to make it 10-6 heading into the ninth.

The Beavers brought out Isaac Yeager to close things out in the ninth and didn’t let a runner on base. By the end of the game, both teams pitched a total of 13 pitchers for a total of 357 pitches.

“There was a lot of fight,” Wasikowski said. “ I mean, we were coming back and had a lot of good at bats to get the score to 10 to 6. Um, and then we just didn’t have enough at the end.”

The Ducks head on the road this weekend to West Lafayette, Indiana, where they’ll take on the Purdue Boilermakers to start Big Ten play. The first game is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Friday, Mar. 6.