No. 18 Oregon softball was not hitting against Sacramento State, but sometimes it only takes a ball put in play to win. In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Ducks got a leadoff base runner in Rylee McCoy and Presley Lawton pinch ran. Two groundouts later, she was on third. Backs against the wall, a groundball to Hornets infielder Madison Evers-Lyles looked to send the game to the eighth, but she booted it. Standing and staring at the ball behind her, Lawton sprinted home for the win.

No. 18 Oregon softball (17-7) dropped its first game of the Saturday double-header and looked to bounce back against a Sacramento State University (18-6) team it narrowly beat yesterday. The story was all freshman starting pitcher Maddie Milhorn, who dealt with the Hornets. She kept them quiet and off the board for six innings, but her offense was on the receiving end of a great performance from Hornets starting pitcher Danyelle Leone. Milhorn did all she could before getting popped for a game-tying solo shot in the seventh, her only blemish on a career night.

Starter Milhorn had the best outing of her early Oregon career. She had the Hornets reaching, making weak contact and by all intents and purposes was the best Oregon pitcher across the double header. She set career highs in strikeouts with 8 and innings pitched with 6, and gave the Ducks everything she had in the tank.

Milhorn (6 IP, 2 H, 8 K), who cruised through 3.1 innings of two-hit softball against the University of Nevada just hours before, was given the ball to start the second game of Oregon’s double-header. She kept her game one form, striking out two despite a walk and a single in the first.

“Anything I can do to go in and get the job done, I’m happy to do.” Milhorn said. 

Both starting pitchers commanded the first three innings. Milhorn had struck out four and gave up one single, while Leone (6 IP, 1 H, 1 R) only allowed one Duck to reach base via a walk. While the Hornets weren’t able to get much contact off of Milhorn, the Ducks were putting the ball in play but they weren’t hitting it hard giving the Hornets defense very easy outs. 

“I think for us, we just got to get the ball out of the air,” Oregon head coach Melyssa Lombardi said about what the offense needs to change to get more runs on the board. “If we could get the ball out of the air quicker, I think we could have got some runs on the board sooner.”

As long as the Ducks had a dominant pitcher in the circle, they were going to be left out there. The Oregon offense and Lyndsey Grein, who had been turned to over and over again this weekend, had bailed out the rest of the pitching staff over day one; but, the 8-5 loss against Nevada in game one showed that the offense couldn’t be responsible in every game to garner a comeback. 

The Ducks were hitless through their first three innings at the plate, and the Hornets only had one. As time went on, it became increasingly obvious that whoever struck first would most likely be the team to walk away with the win.

“Our at-bats today were great,” Harper said. “We just had some hard hits that weren’t really finding holes, which is okay.”

The best opportunity on either side came in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Stefini Ma’ake drew a hit by the pitch and Amari Harper got the Ducks first hit with a single to left center. What looked to be a rally brewing ended after McCoy grounded into a 5-3 double play. Both sides were scoreless through four. 

Milhorn was through five scoreless innings with one hit, one walk and six strikeouts. She was carving up the Hornets at the dish; however, her Hornets counterpart Leone was doing the same to the Ducks. 

“I really just jammed all the batters inside,” Milhorn said. “I think that is what helped me be successful because when I went out with the curveball, they chased because they were seeing (inside) so much.”

The Ducks finally scored in the bottom of the sixth. Elon Butler reached on a fielder’s choice and though Ma’ake grounded out, a throwing error from third baseman Evers-Lyles bailed her out and Butler flew around the bases to score the first run of the game. 

“Hitting it hard into the ground, which I think we did a good job of tonight,” Harper said. “Trying to make their defense make errors, which they did.”

Milhorn went back into the circle for the seventh and gave up an absolute moon shot to dead center field from Evers-Lyles. She got her revenge for her error and knotted up the score at one apiece. Grein was called upon to make sure that the Hornets bats weren’t going to add on. 

McCoy (pinch run for by Presley Lawton) kicked off the bottom of the frame with a single, and a pair of groundouts from Emma Cox and Taryn Ho sent Lawton to third. Katie Flannery drove her in with another groundball to third, and another error from Evers-Lyles sealed the 2-1 win.

Oregon will be back tomorrow for the final game of the Jane Sanders Classic at 12:30 p.m. against the University of Nevada. The game can be watched via Big Ten+ and listened to via KWVA.