Storybook endings came and went for No. 16 Oregon baseball after Naulivou Lauaki Jr. sent its series opener against No. 17 USC to extra innings with a home run, but an 11th inning bookended by a leadoff home run and a sliding catch with the bases loaded of Oregon runners allowed the Trojans to tell the tale.

Oregon (36-15, 18-10 Big Ten) struggled as much as any other lineup against USC (42-12, 20-8 Big Ten) starter Mason Edwards (6 IP, 4 H, 12 K), who lowered his season ERA to 1.61, but a dominant start by Cal Scolari (5 IP, 4 H, ER, 5 K) left the game in the hands of the Ducks’ lineup and bullpen. Toby Twist and Tanner Bradley combined for six innings pitched, in which just one run was scored, but Isaac Cadena’s home run off Bradley in the 11th inning gave the Trojans a 2-1 win.

“It took a diving play to win the game for USC at the very end,” Oregon head coach Mark Wasikowski said. “It was a very good college baseball game all the way around. Really good teams, dominant pitching, and a lot of grit in this one.”

Angel Laya squared up a pull-side single off Edwards with one out in the first inning to get the Ducks’ lineup going, but after Drew Smith’s walk, Oregon stranded both runners.

USC made Oregon pay for the stranded runners with the depth of its lineup, starting with five-hitter Jack Basseer’s leadoff double. Maximo Martinez advanced him to third with a one-out single, and the Trojans opened the scoring on a sacrifice bunt.

Oregon put Edwards in a no-out jam in the third inning, starting with Gabe Miranda’s walk and continuing with an opposite-field double by Ryan Cooney. Edwards stepped up to the test of his run prevention, striking out the side and leaving Oregon to try again.

“That was a big deal, and that’s what guys like that do,” Wasikowski said. “Guys like that can buckle down, and you really gotta have an old at-bat — I thought we had three really young at-bats to turn that inning.”

The starters matched each other’s dominance from there, with Scolari showing comfort setting up his elite slider and tricking batters with it in his first start since April 12, while Edwards racked up strikeouts by drawing hopeless swings with breaking pitches in the dirt. USC’s small-ball run loomed large as innings went by without the ball leaving the infield.

“Other than Tanner Bradley, (Scolari) has been our best guy, and ever since he got sick, we’ve tried to build up his pitch count, and now we’re building it back up to where he can be effective for starting, and this week he saw how effective he was,” Wasikowski said.

Oregon made the first move to its bullpen in the fifth inning, handing the ball to Twist. The lefty retired six straight batters, including two strikeouts in the fifth inning, and drew three quick outs from the middle of the Trojans’ lineup in the sixth.

Edwards never allowed a threat to build after the third inning, but the Ducks forced the USC bullpen to protect a one-run lead by seeing 105 pitches in six innings. The lead immediately came into question in the hands of reliever Sax Matson, with three of the four runners he faced reaching base. A timely double play from the only runner not to reach base against Matson and a pitching change to Andrew Johnson allowed the Trojans to strand two runners in the seventh frame.

Bradley came through with a bases-loaded strikeout after he entered in the eighth inning, and after the Trojans maintained their one-run lead, he collected two of the three outs he recorded in the ninth with strikeouts in only nine pitches.

Lauaki immediately rewarded the dominant bullpen performance with a first-pitch opposite-field home run that never had a chance of falling short of the wall.

“The pitcher had been pounding strikes on the middle and away part of the plate, and so we told him flat out, we’re not taking here,” Wasikowski said. “We want something up over the plate,  and we want you to drive it the other way, and he executed the plan perfectly.”

The Trojans required a double play and a caught-stealing after a four-pitch walk to force extra innings.

Neither team managed a base runner in the 10th inning as Bradley cruised through his third inning of work for Oregon, and Johnson did the same through his third full inning for USC. Cadena’s leadoff home run in the 11th gave the Ducks no more time to figure out Johnson.

Drew Smith and Brayden Jaksa chased Johnson with back-to-back singles to start the decisive inning, but Trojans reliever Adam Troy fought back upon entering by preventing any more heroics from Lauaki with a strikeout. A wild pitch advanced the runners, and USC opted to load the bases with an intentional walk of Burke-Lee Mabeus, but Maddox Molony’s strikeout set up a game-deciding at-bat for Jack Brooks. Brooks hit the first pitch he saw on a line into left field, but Cadena read it all the way into a sliding catch to make his own home run game-winning.

Smith fired his helmet into the netting in front of the dugout after sliding into home as the would-be tying run, and Oregon was left needing back-to-back crucial wins for its Big Ten tournament seeding and regional-hosting prospects.

“You get on the tape, try to learn something that maybe you didn’t see in the game, or you can emphasize to somebody, help guys get back on their own side and not be overly disappointed, then tomorrow we get another chance to be able to play,” Wasikowski said.

Oregon will return to PK Park under threat of a series loss for a 6:05 p.m. first pitch tomorrow.