When a team starts a season by putting up 45 runs in a four-game series with a true freshman hitting two home runs in only his second game, fans know it’s going to be a great season.

And what a season it was for Oregon baseball, as the Ducks’ 43-18 record marked the most wins in a single season under head coach Mark Wasikowski since he took over in 2019. Oregon also made the Super Regional round for the third time under Wasikowski, but tumbled again at the penultimate hurdle with back-to-back heartbreaking losses to the University of Texas.

Is losing against Texas a failure? Yes. This team had College World Series-caliber talent. But anyone looking at this program can see that making a Super Regional with so many underclassmen in significant roles is a massive success — that’s something coaches dream of, even with some of their underlying issues with pitching depth and offensive strategy. 

Take Angel Laya, who was that true freshman with two home runs, but who also demolished 14 home runs in his rookie campaign. What he’s done this season is nothing short of amazing for a true freshman after he took his place in the record books as Oregon’s all-time freshman home run record holder alongside redshirt-freshman Naulivou Lauaki Jr. with 14. Laya also took home a couple of award nods as a Perfect Game Freshman All-American and a member of the All-Eugene Regional team.

Speaking of Lauaki, his story is anything but normal. This is a guy who came to Eugene as a pitcher last year, but an injury forced him to sit out and reevaluate his role in the team. It turns out he hits the ball harder than anyone, and he put the college baseball world on notice in April when he hit a 496-foot home run against Illinois and cemented his spot in the starting lineup as the designated hitter. This was no easy task, with senior Dominic Hellman as one of the team’s best power hitters with eight home runs at that time, but it was actually Hellman who helped Lauaki take over at the DH spot. 

“With me being out last year, I was on the bench with (Hellman) a lot,” Lauaki said following the April 10 win against Nebraska. “I learned a ton from him; he’s been by my side the whole way.”

It would be a disservice not to mention the incredible efforts of pitcher Will Sanford, who led the team on the mound as one of the Big Ten’s best starting pitchers throughout the season and into the postseason. From shutting out Nebraska at the Big Ten tournament to striking out 14 against Washington State in the Regional, his perseverance in big-time moments will live forever in the hearts and minds of Oregon baseball fans for a long time, with more to come in the future since he’s only a sophomore.

“It’s not a shock that the guy has rolled out his best starts late in the year against Nebraska, and then tonight with the home crowd,” Wasikowski said following the Washington State game. 

Now, some negatives to this season need attention, mainly pitching depth and offensive strategy. 

One of the most glaring issues all season was late-game runs, which were entirely on the bullpen. Looking at some losses this year, like the series finale against UCLA in the regular season, where the Bruins scored seven of their nine runs after starter Miles Gosztola went to the dugout. More recently, Texas scored two runs in the eighth inning of the second game of the Austin Super Regional against closer Devin Bell, who had been lights out all season in clutch situations with 12 saves. When a team’s closer can’t close out high-pressure games, there are deeper issues that need to be addressed off the field.

Now, when it comes to offensive strategy, it’s more about the mentality of the Ducks when they come up to the plate. In a lot of different situations throughout the season, it wasn’t uncommon to see players like Hellman, Lauaki, Laya and Maddox Molony trying to play hero and swing for the fences, only to strike out because they fell behind in 0-2 counts. This isn’t an unfixable issue; this is why teams have hitting coaches to work through these slumps. This isn’t a call for Oregon to move on from Jack Marder as its hitting coach, because he’s clearly done great work making the Ducks one of the best scoring teams in baseball this year.

Besides the positives and the negatives behind the team itself, it was the fans at PK Park who showed up when the team needed them most.

“We appreciate them, we need them,” Marder said following the Ducks’ 14-inning win over USC on May 16. “It’s awesome, when I was a player here, it (was) so fun. It shows in all the sports we have; it’s an Oregon pride, a blue-collar place. People on the outside don’t get that. People on the inside do.”

Early in the season, PK wasn’t rocking like it was toward the end of conference play, but when big-time moments came around, the fans showed up. By the end of the Eugene Regional, PK Park had 25,050 fans in attendance over the six games in the tournament, with many fans standing on the concourse because the place was packed to the brim.

Could those numbers be inflated due to local rival Oregon State playing in the tourney? Sure, but there were plenty of Regionals across the country, like the Los Angeles Regional, which were littered with empty seats even in games for the host team, UCLA. The Bruins went on to lose twice to fourth-seed Saint Mary’s College of California in one of the biggest upsets in collegiate baseball history.

With the immense support Oregon had from its fans and if the Ducks can address some of the problems that face this team, there’s no doubt they can make a run for Omaha next season with a lot of their key pieces staying on.